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HEROES OF THE WILDS 



BOOKS BY CHELSEA FRASER 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 

AROUND THE WORLD IN TEN DAYS 

SECRETS OF THE EARTH 

WORK-A-DAY HEROES 

BOYS’ BOOK OF SEA FIGHTS 

BOYS’ BOOK OF BATTLES 

THE YOUNG CITIZEN’S OWN BOOK 


THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO., NEW YORK 









© Underwood and Underwood 

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON A WESTERN HUNTING TRIP 


HEROES OF 
THE WILDS 


BY 

CHELSEA FRASER 

l> 


Author of “Around the World in Ten Days,** 
“Work-a-Day Heroes,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 



9 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 










Copyright, 1923, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY. 


♦ 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

JUL 26 ’23 


©C1A711363 


TO THE 

RED-BLOODED MEN WHO 
MENACED DAILY BY DANGER 
EARN AN HONEST LIVING 
UNDER THE WIDE ROOF OF THE SKY 


PREFACE 


I N a preceding volume, entitled “Work-a- 
Day Heroes,” I told of the lives and work 
of that sturdy class of toilers whose duties 
bring them in daily contact with peril within the 
circle of civilization. In this book I attempt to 
make you acquainted with just as sterling a class 
of humble workers, but men leading far lonelier 
lives and even more rugged ones—the stout¬ 
hearted, rough-shod, unwhimpering, oak-sinewed, 
magnificent “Heroes of the Wilds.” To the 
courage, alertness, and fortitude of these splendid 
outposters of toiling humanity, we of the popu¬ 
lous town and city owe much. 

To the fearlessness and painstaking effort of 
the explorer we owe a debt too great to be paid 
with the baubles of trade. We must thank him 
for the very ground we tread and live upon; for 
the dirt of the wheatfield which furnishes flour 
for our daily bread; for the wonderful knowledge 
of world geography which spreads out before us 
in maps and printed pages. Indeed, the chances 
are that the boundary line of our own State was 
won at the cost of an explorer’s great hardship 


PREFACE 


• • • 

Vlll 

and suffering—if not actually accompanied by 
death itself, as in the case of the tragic story of 
Leonidas Hubbard, narrated in this book. 

To the perseverance and skill of the trapper— 
he who pits the intelligence of the higher order 
of life against the cunning of the lower order— 
we are likewise under obligations. To him we 
owe our ability to purchase agricultural prod¬ 
ucts at a more reasonable price than otherwise, 
simply because he catches every year hundreds 
of predatory wild animals, thus saving many 
thousands of dollars’ worth of crops and domes¬ 
tic stock to the farmer. The trapper also aids 
us in keeping warm in the winter-time, his steel 
traps and dead-falls contributing the beautiful, 
glossy furs in which we wrap ourselves against 
the chill blasts of King Frost. In Michigan 
alone, in 1922, trappers took more than three 
million dollars’ worth of pelts. 

To the photographer of wild life, and to the 
scientific hunter of big game, we should pay 
homage for much of our understanding of the 
ways of birds and animals, rare specimens of 
which we would never be able to identify except 
for the wonderful pictures men have taken, at 
the outlay of an astounding amount of patience, 
a rare ingenuity, and in many cases at the risk 
of their lives. 


PREFACE 


IX 


To the forest-ranger, that lonely sentinel 
tucked away in the deep solitude of an immense 
woodland, where catamounts and wolves howl by 
night, and where timber-thieves and withering 
fires give combat by day, we cannot assign too 
much credit. Crusoed from his own kind, work¬ 
ing for pure love of the magnificent trees he 
stands guard over, that they may live to bear 
golden-hued boards in their maturity for a gen¬ 
eration of needful people, this noble son of the 
wilds thinks more of his work than of his small 
salary from the Government. 

So also the cowboy, the Texas-ranger, the sur¬ 
veyor and the lumberjack. Heroes all are they, 
to whom we owe many of our own comforts. 
The cowboy, flirting with death on his wiry little 
mustang or cow-pony, does his share in provid¬ 
ing our table with beef and mutton, and our feet 
with shoes and boots, and our hands with gloves. 
The Texas-ranger protects our side of the fron¬ 
tier from guerilla raids, whisky-running, and 
lawlessness of many kinds. The surveyor, won¬ 
derful magician, lays plans for turning boglands 
and swamps into fertile farms; schemes out high¬ 
ways and dams and bridges and tunnels in the 
most hopeless places—and all under trials and 
hardships which no one but a surveyor can appre¬ 
ciate. The lumberjack, taking frightful risks 


X 


PREFACE 


from injury, also has to face great peril every 
time his combination of skill and tools brings a 
forest giant crashing to his feet. 

Thus treading virgin soil, penetrating untram¬ 
meled forests, facing thirst on desert wastes, vy¬ 
ing with starvation and benumbing cold in bleak 
regions, fighting vitality-sapping fevers and tor¬ 
menting insects in hot lands, threatened alike by 
wild animals and the onslaughts of nature’s most 
violent storms, these men gain their livelihood 
under a constant, never-ceasing menace of injury 
or death. 

To the majority of such gallant fellows as 
these, about whom you may read in the following 
pages, I am personally indebted for information 
modestly given. In weaving these strands to¬ 
gether I have departed as little as possible from 
the narrator’s style and vernacular, and in no 
case have the facts been modified or tampered 
with for the sake of literary or dramatic effect. 

C. F. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Lumberjack.. 1 

II The Forest Ranger ...... 44 

III The Texas Ranger ....... 88 

IV The Cowboy. 120 

V The Surveyor. 166 

VI The Explorer . 203 

VII The Big-Game Hunter. 247 

VIII The Wild-Life Photographer . . . 291 

IX The Trapper.333 













LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


President Roosevelt on a western Hunting Trip 

Frontispiece 

PAGE 

“Chopping” in the old way.18 

Lumberjacks riding logs in the mouth of the river 
at Cheboygan, Mich.28 

Cutting off the top of a Douglas Fir 180 feet from 
the ground.38 

Forest Ranger on patrol duty on Mt. Silcox . . 52 

Fighting a Forest Fire.72 

Texas Rangers patrolling the border .... 102 

The Night Herder.122 

Fancy Roping in a Cowboy Camp.153 

Wallace on a Portage.220 

Hubbard ragged and almost barefooted . . . 228 

Bear Hunters’ Camp.268 

A Hippo Hunt in the Congo Regions .... 284 

Photograph of an Oregon Bobcat.294 

Photograph of a Coyote; inhabitant of the driest 
part of the United States.302 

Photograph of California Condors; the rarest 
birds in the United States.314 






Heroes of the Wilds 

i 

THE LUMBERJACK 

I GET you. Your idea is to learn all you can 
about the lumberjack and his work, ain’t it? 
All right, then; this is the best way: Meet me 
the fore part of next week at the Evergreen Bough 
Hotel, in Vancouver City. Go with me to our camp 
at the head of Coola Inlet. See all you can. Hear 
all you can. Fire questions at me as hard and fast 
as you can. Try your own hand at logging if you 
want to. I’ll be looking for you. Remember—the 
Evergreen Bough.” 

S O wrote Dave Crandell, master-faller for 
the Henry & Rust Lumber Company, 
with huge timber holdings in British Co¬ 
lumbia. Dave was one of those big, husky, 
breezy, fearless-eyed sort of chaps who just 
couldn’t have been raised anywhere except right 
next to a big, husky, breezy tree. You would 
know he had chummed with the deep forest the 
moment you set eyes on him. Since a boy only 

fourteen years old he had been around lumber- 

1 


2 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 


camps; and now he was thirty-two. Yes, Dave 
Crandell had worked at every branch of the busi¬ 
ness, from chore-boy and cook’s-helper to driver 
and boss-logger. Not only that, but he had 
worked in a half-dozen sections of the United 
States and Canada—up in Maine, with ox-pulled 
sleighs; in Michigan and Wisconsin he had rafted 
down turbid, treacherous rivers; in Mississippi 
he had taken yellow-pine out of great swamps; 
in the State of Washington, he had wrestled with 
immense fir giants which it took powerful steam 
“donks” and straining locomotives to haul out 
of their environment. So, all in all, do you won¬ 
der that I appealed to Dave as a promising 
source of information when I set about getting 
material for this section of my book? 

Well, the upshot of the matter was, I took 
Dave at his word; that is, I landed in the city 
of Vancouver “the fore part of next week.” I 
had not thought of really going into a big lum¬ 
ber-camp of the Northwest when I wrote him at 
first; but now here I was, right in the lumber¬ 
jack’s metropolis, and I was beginning to feel 
that I had struck a most interesting little adven¬ 
ture. 

As I walked down Cordova Street toward the 
Evergreen Bough, I noticed a gradual change 
in the business buildings and the stocks of goods 
they carried. Stately office-buildings and im- 


THE LUMBERJACK 


3 


posing stores had given place to squatty struc¬ 
tures whose wares never in the world would have 
attracted the attention of a clerk, banker, or 
man of big business. These dingy little stores 
and shops, plentifully intermixed with noisy 
pool-rooms and saloons, proudly exhibited in 
their dusty windows such things as faller’s axes; 
swamper’s axes, single-bitted and double-bitted; 
logging chains, cant-hooks, pea vies, jack-screws, 
pump-jacks, wedges, sledge-hammers, great 
seven-foot faller’s saws with ugly-looking, shark¬ 
like teeth; and huge hand-augers for boring 
boomsticks. Hostetter invited me to pause and 
look at his logging boots, whose bristling spikes 
would surely stay in. Jones had scrawled a 
placard stating that his “wet-proof peccary hog- 
skin gloves” were guaranteed to save your hands 
from many a blister when working with wire 
ropes. Weeman, next door, had two pairs of 
dungaree trousers hanging outside, flapping and 
cracking in the wind like boilerplate, with a 
notice attached to the effect that “all buttons are 
riveted on, and you don’t need needle and 
thread, Jack. Likewise these seams are copper- 
riveted, and we guarantee them not to bust open, 
Jack.” Then there w r ere oilskins, and blankets, 
and rough suits of frieze for winter wear, and 
gay-looking Mackinaw jackets; gloves, mittens, 
and ear-muffer caps galore. 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Outside the shop windows, on the pavement in 
the street, I observed a change, too. Women had 
vanished, for the most part. Men were looking 
in the windows; men were drifting up and down 
the street, men lounged in groups along the curb. 
As I looked at them, I was impressed at once by 
the unusual proportion of big men—men who 
looked stalwart and powerful even in their town 
clothes, which they seemed to wear with an ex¬ 
ceedingly poor grace, as if unused to such gar¬ 
ments. Others were in rumpled, disreputable 
clothes which had been slept in; others, in old 
suits and sagging sweaters with greasy neckrolls 
which would have given a laundress a nightmare. 
Here and there one appeared in Weeman’s cop¬ 
per-riveted dungarees, also in Hostetter’s log¬ 
ging-boots, and Jones’s “wet-proof peccary hog- 
skin gloves.” 

It was plain that I was among lumberjacks 
and loggers. They were passing time away as 
only lumberjacks can. They were telling stories 
in one knot, and arguing in the next; they were 
laughing so heartily you would think they would 
rip their ribs out. But mostly they were occu¬ 
pied in chewing and cussing—cussing while they 
laughed and joked; chewing while they listened 
—and both chewing and cussing while they ar¬ 
gued and storied. And when they were neither 


THE LUMBERJACK 


S 


chewing or cussing, nor laughing or speaking, 
they were busy spitting. A little bunch of three 
were actually centering their attention on this 
latter occupation—putting up a silver dollar as a 
prize for the one who could spit farther than his 
companions. A bit farther along I encountered 
a variation in this pastime—saw four big raw- 
boned chaps in the exciting contest of determin¬ 
ing which could spit in an empty sardine-can at a 
four-yard range. 

They seemed to feel the day was passing 
slowly; that they must stop and wait here and 
there for it to catch up with them. Meal-times 
seemed so far apart that they needs must divide 
the long day into short periods, each man in his 
own way, at the expiration of which I would 
hear some one of them say, “Avadrink, boys”; 
and away most of that bunch would melt. 
Mind you, not always all of them; but always 
most of them—for the lumberjack as a general 
thing does like his “wet goods” when he can get 
it, and he surely can get it aplenty in the Cana¬ 
dian Northwest, where saloons do a thriving 
business in the “supply towns” frequented by 
Jack on a lay-off. 

The farther I went down the street, the more 
shops gave way to saloons and restaurants; and 
here and there the blackboard of an employment 


6 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

agency stared me in the face in this wise:— 

60 axemen wanted at Alberni. 

7 rigging-slingers, $5. 

30 buckers, $4.50. 

45 swampers, $4.00. 

And around the board would be a group of 

the curious, commenting, rough-cast men of the 
woods themselves, some saying to “keep away 
from Alberni if you know when you’re well off, 
for Carson runs that camp; Carson the hardest 
man-driver in the Northwest,”—others speaking 
in Carson’s defense; others just listening. 

As I passed the public rooms of hotels, 
through the grimy panes I could see woodsmen 
sitting there in old Windsor chairs; see them 
idly watching the passing throngs, chairs tipped 
back, heavy brogues on scarred window-frame, 
spittoons in close proximity on a sawdust-covered 
floor. 

At length I came to the Evergreen Bough, a 
hotel of the better class. My friend Dave Cran- 
dell met me in the doorway, his big hand out¬ 
stretched, a frank smile of welcome on his clean- 
cut features. Dave was not a drinker; never had 
been; never would be. He had seen enough of 
the poverty and misery sprees cost to last him 
two or three life-times. None of booze for him. 
He preferred to keep his head clear all the time. 



THE LUMBERJACK 


7 


That is why, I afterwards learned from his 
bosses, they paid him twice as much wages as 
any other master-faller in the business; why his 
services were in demand by practically all lum¬ 
bering concerns along the Pacific cutting-line. 

“What is the first thing a fellow does after he 
hits Vancouver from a season in the woods?” I 
asked Dave after supper that evening. “The 
average lumberjack, I mean, of course.” 

“You might think he would get drunk first,” 
said Dave, with a smile, “but he doesn’t. He 
doesn’t think it respectable to get drunk in his 
woods clothes, with a bearlike beard covering 
his face till you can see only his cheekbones, 
eyes, mouth, and forehead, and months of grime 
on his skin. So he strips a few bills from his 
pay-roll, spits luxuriously, and makes a bee-line 
for various shops where he can get a hair-cut, 
a shave, and a bath. Then he’ll want a new hat, 
for sure. And his last town-suit, which he has 
carried around with him stuffed in the bottom 
of his canvas bag, will be so wrinkled that he’ll 
want another. 

“The next thing will be to fix on a stopping- 
place. Some of the boys take a fifty-cent room 
in a lodging-house and feed in the restaurants. 
The great objection to that is the uncertainty 
of getting back home safely at night. All in 
all, a fellow can’t do better than to go to a good, 


8 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 


respectable hotel where he knows the proprietor 
and the bartenders, and where there are some 
decent men stopping. Then he knows he will 
be looked after when he is drunk; and, getting 
drunk, he will not be distressed by spasms of 
anxiety lest some one should go through his 
pockets and leave him dead broke. There are 
some shady characters in a town like Vancouver, 
fake woodsmen who hang around the hotels on 
purpose to rob. As a rule one lumberjack 
would never think of stealing from another or 
taking a mean advantage of him. They are 
mighty honest fellows, in spite of their rough 
looks and actions. 

“Of course the first two days in town a man 
will usually get good-and-drunk—what we call 
‘completely soused.’ That is, he won’t be able 
to take care of himself, and some of us fellows 
have to do it for him in order to keep the poor 
fool out of jail and prevent confidence men of 
the city from robbing him. The sober and semi- 
sober fellows either go out and loaf around town 
or hang around the stove in the hotel, and read 
the papers, and discuss the latest sporting news, 
and get hot-headed over the Japanese immigra¬ 
tion problem, and tell yarns about loggers, and 
then get into a wordy war about Capital and 
Labor, and then tell some more yarns about 
loggers. The yarns always come in to cool off 


THE LUMBERJACK 9 

the atmosphere the minute it begins to seethe 
from serious discussions.” 

“How long does this vacation of Jack’s last?” 
I inquired. 

“Till his pile gives out, or till the lumbering 
season opens up full blast again in September,” 
said Dave Crandell. “But some of the boys can 
stand it quite a while. If you are ‘acquainted’ 
with Billy Barker, the proprietor,—that is to 
say, if you have blown in your earnings before at 
his place, and if he knows you are a good woods¬ 
man,—Billy will just reach down in his pocket 
and lend you fives and tens after your own money 
is all gone. In this way you can keep on the 
‘bust’ a little longer, and can ease off gradually, 
keeping pace with Billy’s growing disinclination 
to lend. But sooner or later you’ve got to face 
the fact that your spree is over; that the time 
has come to hunt up a new job. 

“You make inquiries around the saloons. In 
the Logger’s Delight somebody introduces you 
to Terrence O’Day. O’Day wants a rigging- 
slinger. Gee, that’s just your niche! You tell 
him so. O’Day eyes the bleary wreck you are. 
Long practice at this sizing-up game tells him 
what sort of a man you are when you’re in the 
woods and can’t get near a smell of liquor. He 
stands the drinks; hires you at five—and that 
night you find yourself hilariously drunk, sing- 


10 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ing like a reg'lar fool in the Cassiar’s saloon, 
while the little coast steamer wheezes you north 
to work.” 

I don’t think my friend Dave really meant me 
at all when he spoke in this way. Be that as it 
may, only two days later, in the evening, we 
both stood on the deck of this same steamer Cas- 
siar watching the lights of Vancouver disappear 
in our wake—and both of us were very, very 
sober. Many, however, were not. They strolled 
and rolled about singing riotously, as Dave had 
said they would do, and a little later in the even¬ 
ing we encountered no end of them curled up on 
the deck, in almost every conceivable corner, 
“sleepin’ ’er off.” 

If you take a large-scale map of British Co¬ 
lumbia, you will notice how the 300-mile stretch 
of Vancouver Island, like a great breakwater, 
shuts off from the ocean a fine strip of sea, and 
how that sea is all littered with islands. You 
will see the outline of the mainland coast, from 
Vancouver north, a jagged outline all dented 
with inlets and sounds and arms—fiords they 
call them elsewhere in the world. Try to realize 
that the shores of these fiords are mostly moun¬ 
tain slopes; that slopes and narrow valleys and 
hilly islands—all the land everywhere—is 
covered with big forest to the very edge of tide¬ 
water ; then you will have some idea of the sturdy 


THE LUMBERJACK 


11 


scenery I looked upon the following morning 
from the after-deck of the Cassiar. 

There was green forest so extensive that it 
looked like a plumed, rank growth of moss upon 
the higher slopes—an emerald Brussels carpet 
of long nap and wonderful sheen and texture 
where the bright sun shone full upon it. And in 
nearer places were bristling dead poles of burnt 
timber, standing out black and naked against 
a cold background of gray rock; nearer still were 
magnificent firs towering up into the sky more 
than 150 feet, while here and there were immense 
fallen trunks with an amazing root display at 
their bases; and lodged giants leaned irresolutely 
and dependency on many a bower of stalwart 
support. Near the shore floated stray logs; the 
beach itself, here and there, held piles of the 
white, bleached vagrants which some enterpris¬ 
ing beachcomber had rescued. And there were 
long stretches of coast along which little lanes 
seemed to have been cut in the water-side forest. 
Pointing to one of these, I asked the good- 
natured Dave what it was. 

“That? Oh, that’s a ‘slash’ made by hand- 
loggers,” informed my friend. “There’s aplenty 
of ’em around these parts, as you’ll notice.” 

“What are ‘hand-loggers’ ?” 

“They are small logging crews—private en¬ 
terprises not incorporated under the laws of 


12 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


the country as a company; and, owing to their 
lack of capital, they have scarcely any machinery 
outside of a ‘donk,’ or donkey-engine. Often 
there are no more than a couple of men in a 
hand-logger’s outfit.” 

“How do they get these stands of timber to 
cut?” 

“You know in British Columbia—that’s where 
you are now—a man can go anywhere on unoc¬ 
cupied Crown lands, put in a corner-post, give a 
rough description of one square mile of forest 
measured from that post, and get from the Gov¬ 
ernment exclusive right to the timber on that 
square mile. In return he pays a rent of $140 a 
year. The section thus marked out is called a 
‘timber claim.’ In good seasons, when lumber is 
high, these hand-loggers usually clear up a nice 
little pile of dough; that’s why there’s so many 
of ’em. Donks or jack-screws can be bought on 
credit from sawmill companies; supplies can be 
got on credit from hopeful storekeepers. No 
matter if the crew consists of a couple or a dozen 
men they are usually all stockholders in the en¬ 
terprise, pulling hard together—and it counts as 
long as they keep sober and don’t get to quar¬ 
reling about who’s head boss.” 

“Did you ever do any hand-logging in these 
parts, Dave?” 

“I sure did. Might tell you about the time 


THE LUMBERJACK 


13 


Dick Phelps and me joined our slender savings 
and pushed up past Boughton Island, past camp 
after camp of hand-loggers, till we got by ’em all 
and came to our own recorded stand of timber. 
This timber was handy to the beach—big fine 
cedars of the virgin kind for the most part. 
When we ‘cruised’ for it months before, we had 
looked eagerly for a small bay where wind and 
waves could not blow in with any violence. At 
each good-looking tract of timber we always 
asked ourselves these questions: What would 
the west wind do in summer? How would the 
north wind strike in winter? Which way would 
the sou’-easter blow from off the mountains? 
They’re the same questions all veteran hand- 
loggers ask themselves; if they don’t they’re 
liable to get in a peck of trouble—have to work 
under the worst kind of weather conditions, and 
probably have adverse winds break up their 
boomsticks and sweep away the thousands of 
valuable logs they have been weeks and months 
cutting and getting ready for rafting to the saw¬ 
mill. 

“Our bay seemed secure from wind and sea. 
The hillside, too, arose from the water at the 
right sort of angle; neither too steep for men to 
climb, nor too flat for logs to slide down easily. 
Then we set to work to build our camp. We did 
not build the ordinary log-house because cedar 



14 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


was so plentiful. We just took our two-man 
faller’s saw, and cut a cedar log up into twelve 
and sixteen-foot lengths; then, with our axes and 
wedges, split the straight-grained wood into 
planks. These we used as sheeting, nailing 
them to our cabin framework of cedar poles. 
Then we put in a floor of rough-hewn slabs, and 
fixed up bunks, and made a table, and set our 
cookstove and pipe in position for the best 
draught. 

“Outside the cabin we cleared a little more 
ground, and made a shed, underneath which we 
set our grindstone; and made a vise so that it 
would be easy to sharpen our big falling saws. 
We did a few more things, and pretty soon our 
camp was completed. Morning and evening 
gray smoke ascended from it, and marked its 
site against the mountain slope; and the sun, 
shining, sifted down through the spreading 
boughs of the mighty cedars where Dick and I 
toiled daily at our job of wrestling and throw¬ 
ing the monsters of bark, branches, and green 
needles that had been growing in this spot for 
countless years. 

“First we felled some tall, slender fir trees in 
such a place that they would go sliding down 
into the sea after we had trimmed them of limbs 
and branches with our axes, and had cut them 
into logs sixty feet long. We bored holes 


THE LUMBERJACK 


15 


through the end of each of these logs, and 
chained them end to end like the links of a great 
wooden chain. This chain we stretched across 
the mouth of our little bay, and anchored it at 
both ends, so it would give us a safe harbor for 
the logs we meant to cut. Once placed inside, 
no log could wander off to sea, to make loss for 
us and profit for the watchful beachcombers. 
Our boom, in loggers’ speech, was ‘hung.’ We 
were ready to start hand-logging in dead 
earnest. 

“We made good money on that venture. The 
work was so interesting that Dick and I worked 
day in and day out, in wet and snow and shine. 
The first streaks of daylight would find us in our 
place of work for that day* perhaps a mile’s row¬ 
boat journey from home. There we would 
grind away till dark. We would carry our 
sharp, awkward tools up through the mountain¬ 
side underbrush, slashing our way through to 
some likely giant of the forest. Then we’d kerf 
each side of the tree; kerf again just above; chop 
out the wood between the parallel kerfs; each of 
us would insert his springboard in the opening 
on his side; we’d mount to our plank, like two 
kids on a teeter-totter; then, Dick gripping his 
end of the long lance-tooth saw, and I gripping 
my end, we’d begin the job of sawing our way 
through the great elephant-like girth of woody 


16 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


fiber. As we worked, our gently swaying 
springboards, sometimes a man’s reach from the 
ground, beat time to our pushes and pulls and 
did a lot to relieve the muscular fatigue we other¬ 
wise would have suffered.” 

“What if your tree should, by natural inclina¬ 
tion or force of wind, fall up the slope instead of 
down?” I asked. 

“It wouldn’t; a tree never goes in any direc¬ 
tion except that in which the faller wants it to,” 
said Dave laconically. “That is, it never does if 
he knows his business. Most of these cedars and 
firs stand fairly erect, and by careful calcula¬ 
tion and proper method of cutting, the tree can 
be dropped in any spot desired. This is done 
as a rule by undercutting one side more than the 
other; if the tree inclines too much in the wrong 
way to permit this, or if the wind is blowing too 
hard from the wrong side, we still accomplish our 
ends by sawing our tree through close to the 
breaking point, then felling a favorably-situated 
neighboring tree into it from the side that will 
send our big fellow crashing to the place we have 
planned for it to lie. I have seen choppers as 
well as sawmen so skilful at the work, that they 
could drop a tree with sufficient accuracy to hit 
and drive a stake into the ground.” 

“Remarkable, Dave!” I exclaimed. “If any- 


THE LUMBERJACK 


17 

body but you had told me that I would not be 
inclined to believe it.” 

“Just the same it is true,” said the woodsman, 
with warmth. “When we get to camp I will 
give you a chance to see it done. Big Vink can 
do it; Jess Spooner can do it; ‘Checkers’ Tal¬ 
bot can do it.” 

“Are they what you call ‘fallers’?” 

“Yes; a ‘faller’ is a man who cuts a tree down 
with a saw, as most cutting of big timber is done 
nowadays. You don’t hear of ‘choppers’ out 
here in the Pacific Northwest; that is an Eastern 
term and applied more to old-time methods of 
felling trees. The saw cuts faster and with far 
less loss of loggage. It is a thrilling business to 
bring down these great trees, and we lumber¬ 
jacks never get tired of the music made by the 
saw as it eats its way through, nor tired watch¬ 
ing the big giants of the woods go down. As 
the last strand of sustaining fiber is severed, the 
immense top of the tree quivers; the lookout 
yells, ‘Timber!’ and the two men at the saw 
spring from their perch and dash out of harm’s 
way. Even as they jump aside there comes a 
deep bowing of the branches and needles away 
up above, a straining squeak—then a splinter¬ 
ing, cracking, popping that makes your heart 
leap fairly out of your body, throat, and all,— 


18 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


reports sounding like a bunch of giant-fire¬ 
crackers going off at one time. 

“You can’t forget it—the breaking of those 
last life-sinews of the king-stick of the forest. 
But that isn’t all the noise he makes. There’s 
such a roaring as he goes smashing his 
way down through myriads of limbs and 
branches of trees in his way that it sounds 
more like a wild tornado let loose in that 
particular spot than it does anything else I 
can think of. And the ground trembles under 
the stroke so you can feel it clear up your spine, 
safe to one side though you be. I know it to be 
a fact that the echo will often carry on a still 
morning as far as six and eight miles; I’ve heard 
it that far myself, up here in the clear air of the 
Western coast ranges.” 

“The thunder of a big modern gun wouldn’t be 
heard much farther than that,” I remarked. “I 
should think a huge tree like this would make 
considerable of a dent in the ground when it 
strikes.” 

“It sure would—and would get shaken up it¬ 
self to such an extent that it might get shattered 
in the trunk and prove a big loss of good timber. 
But we provide against that either by dropping 
some no-account small trees as bed-pieces for the 
big chap, or by laying crowns we have chopped 
off other big ones we have felled.” 



© Underwood and Underwood 


“CHOPPING” IN THE OLD WAY 














THE LUMBERJACK 


19 


“But, Dave, in spite of all their skill and pre¬ 
cautions some of these lumberjacks get caught 
by the falling trees, do they not?” 

“It would be remarkable if they didn’t,” said 
the master-faller. “As the fallers run out of 
the danger zone at the first creak of the monster, 
no fellow knows that he won’t stumble before he 
has gone a yard; that some sudden twist of the 
wind won’t send the tree crashing in the wrong 
direction. I have seen more than one poor fel¬ 
low crushed as flat as a pancake under big trunks 
that took a notion to follow after him; I have 
seen fallers get broken legs and arms and collar¬ 
bones and ribs when some wide-spreading limb 
reached farther out than they thought it would; 
again, I saw ‘Muffin’ Sullivan—lucky ‘Muffin’! 
—knocked clean down a slope and into the bay 
that way, without a scratch; and I have seen one 
man killed and another badly injured by a long 
kick-back of the bole when such a thing was not 
looked for by these two green hands who thought 
they knew it all when we told them to get out 
from behind. Yes, it’s dangerous business; the 
reports in the newspapers prove that; but you’ll 
find before you get back to town that there’s lots 
of other jobs in lumbering and logging that are 
just as risky as felling the trees.” 

All this time the Cassiar was steadily puffing 
her way upcoast, and Dave and I had not been 



20 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 


too interested in our conversation to keep our 
eyes and ears open. Every now and then we 
would see the distant roof of a logging-camp 
shining yellow through the trees, and hear the 
whistle of a donkey-engine from where white 
spheroids of steam would blot out patches of the 
forest green beyond. Then the steamer would 
toot in glad response; would slow down and wait 
for the camp bateau or rowboat to come out and 
meet us. Then the loggers would tie up to the 
Cassiars side for a few hurried minutes, while 
meat and supplies, and a packet of mail, were 
thrown aboard the smaller craft. We passengers 
would all lean over the deck-rail and laugh down 
at little breakages that would occur, poking fun 
at the outcasts, while they shot back good-na¬ 
tured raillery at us and wanted to know the latest 
news from Vancouver. 

Indeed, the Cassiar’s lower deck was a veri¬ 
table department-store of miscellaneous mer¬ 
chandise used by logging crews. There were 
rows and rows of huge quarters of beef, piles of 
heavy boomchains and coils of wire-cable; and 
groceries galore, in boxes, casks, and sacks. 
There were new rowboats fresh from the builders 
in Vancouver, and old rowboats and bateaux be¬ 
longing to passengers who were going timber- 
cruising farther north. The lower deck, in fact, 
was just a cargo-room, with a space partitioned 


THE LUMBERJACK 


21 


off to hold the liquor and the bar-tender. Aft 
of the cargo-room were the oily-smelling en¬ 
gines, and the little galley where Chinamen and 
Japanese cooked and washed dishes and peeled 
potatoes. There, too, was the “skookum-box” 
—the steamer’s jail or lock-up. Into it the 
burly first-mate of the Cassiar was wont to 
hustle “drunks” who proved too noisy or obstrep¬ 
erous. In every case they went most unwill¬ 
ingly, but the officer had a most convincing col- 
lar-and-trousers’-seat-grip which all of us sober 
fellows much admired. 

At eleven o’clock, in the pitchy darkness of 
that Friday night, the Cassiar drew near to 
Hanson Island, and made the hilly shores of the 
narrow channel echo and reecho with her siren. 
We passed a dark headland and saw the lights of 
the hotel before us. 

Lanterns flickered about along the beach, and 
rowboats were dispatched to the large raft which 
serves the place as a wharf. Here our vessel 
met them, and a lot of our camp freight was 
transferred, some going to the shore boats and 
much more going into the warehouse which was 
erected upon the raft. 

“We leave the Cassiar here,” informed Dave. 
“In the morning we will take my company’s 
little steamer, the Spitfire , direct to Port Brown¬ 
ing and the camp on Coola Inlet.” 


22 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


So, shouldering our “turkeys”—which is the 
lumberjack’s term for the canvas bag holding all 
his woods belongings—Dave and I accompanied 
many other passengers off the steamer, letting 
ourselves gingerly down upon an assortment of 
boxes and packages which were piled upon the 
raft in rank confusion. You see, in order to en¬ 
joy my adventure to the utmost and not attract 
too much attention from the other woodsmen, I 
had, like Dave, attired myself in the rough garb 
of the profession, and carried an outfit of con¬ 
ventional personal supplies. 

All was black shadow on the raft, and dim 
forms and feeble lantern gleams. I held Dave’s 
coattail so I would not lose him. 

Then we got into one of the shore boats. In a 
few minutes it was a solid mass of men and 
bundles. The oarsman, being unable to reach 
his quarters, suffered one of the Cassicir’s late 
passengers to try his hand at pulling us ashore. 
This fellow, who had asserted himself noisily for 
the task, settled down to business, while I began 
to have vague misgivings, which became more 
and more pronounced, as Jim wallowed us far¬ 
ther and farther away from the raft. 

Jim was dreadfully drunk, but not too drunk 
to know his object. He held sternly to a design 
to row the boat and its load ashore, aiming to 


THE LUMBERJACK 23 

where the hotel lights shone bright above the 
beach. 

We moved like a snail through utter darkness. 
As he sweat and toiled at the oars, Jim was the 
target for much good advice from all his nearest 
friends; and Jim didn’t like it a bit, and pro¬ 
ceeded to cuss till everybody got to laughing, 
and then he went it a perfect blue-streak. Heav¬ 
ens! I never heard such expertness in this line. 
If those lurid explosions had been directed im¬ 
mediately in our wake, I verily believe they 
would have had force enough to have shot us 
ashore in no time. 

But Jim’s lingo was as nothing compared to 
what it was a few minutes later, when he drove 
the nose of the boat against a floating log. 
Working around this, after paying it his best 
compliments, our oarsman managed to get us 
into a perfect tangle of other logs. The more he 
struggled, the tighter we got hemmed in. Logs 
seemed to be everywhere. Jim, with a ripping 
flow of language which did not help matters in 
the least, tried to row over the obstacles. Then 
he tried to push the whole mass along in front of 
him. Then he said the blank-blank-blank- 
blank-blank things could be walked-on, anyhow, 
and that we were to follow his lead and walk 
across them to shore. 


24. HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Now, it so happened that not one of us 
thought this a good plan. Though most all 
those loggers would have relished the idea with 
spiked boots in the daytime, nobody cared about 
tackling it at night, when the slippery logs could 
not even be seen. So Jim faced an overwhelm¬ 
ing chorus of dissension—a dissension which 
finally developed into the mild mutiny of every 
mother’s son of us, including Jim himself, jump¬ 
ing thigh-deep into the water and hauling the 
boat and its merchandise ashore. 

We found solace in the public-room of the 
hotel. Noise was my first impression—noise of 
shuffling feet, the stamp of applauding men, 
loud talk, heavy guffaws, whoops, and somebody 
bawling, “Care don’t live round here, boys! 
Yah-hurrup! Yah-hurrup! Line up an’ ava- 
drink on me!” 

I saw that the room was crowded. A red-hot 
stove—which we promptly circled around— 
stood in one corner. A card game was going on 
at a small table, and men stood around, three- 
deep, to watch the play. Large sums were in 
the pool. There was a steady coming and going 
of other fellows between the bar-room and the 
public-room, and men loafed about the rooms 
and passages, and talked, or argued or scuffled 
playfully. The doggers rolled clumsily though 
merrily to the tunes of a fiddle played by an old 


THE LUMBERJACK 


25 


man who swayed with shut eyes, rapt in his dis¬ 
cordant scraping. 

The truth is, the hotel was doing “good busi¬ 
ness’’ that night. The whirlpool of excitement 
was a-booming and a-boiling, sucking down 
men’s hard-earned wages and with it their 
health; the boys were “on the tear,” and the 
place resounded with their last revelry before 
they would go into camp, where perforce they 
must conduct themselves more decorously. 
Those who had fallen from exhaustion lay 
splayed out upon the floor in drunken sleep, and 
we had to pick our way about rather carefully 
to avoid stepping on them; those who were sick 
from over-indulgence lay outside in the night. 
Could a young boy have seen that sight, I am 
sure he never would want to touch a drop of 
liquor during his own life-time. 

That night we slept in a great loft of the log¬ 
gers’ hotel, in plain little beds among many— 
beds which we were assured by the proprietor 
were “nice and clean and bug-proof,” because he 
made a practice of “dopin’ every plaguey crack 
an’ crevice with kerosene twict every week.” 
The hardened Dave slept blissfully all through 
the night, despite stertorous breathing from ad¬ 
jacent beds; but I simply could not, for I was 
unused to such surroundings; so toward morn¬ 
ing, after receiving sundry visitations from cer- 


26 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


tain minute enemies concealed about the “nice 
and clean” bed, I took my blanket from my 
turkey and rolled up in it on the floor 

In the morning we all met at the long table in 
the plain dining-room of the hotel and had our 
breakfasts for fifty cents apiece, getting a really 
wholesome, substantial meal, such as all woods¬ 
men hanker for and need. Nobody stinted him¬ 
self the least bit; most of the men, I noticed, 
filled their plates at least twice with fried pota¬ 
toes, gravy, and ham. Now that they were all 
more or less sober, I enjoyed studying them. 
Though most were commonplace by birth and 
associations, the average of character seemed 
high, as averages go; and I saw that there were 
some fine, virile-looking fellows amid the crowd. 
They were all firm of flesh, resolute in action,— 
even to spearing food,—and there was scarcely 
a face or a pair of hands which were not deeply 
w T eather-stained, some of them scarred from 
hurts of a by-gone time, some exhibiting marks 
of recent brawls when in the cups. And if whis¬ 
key were their bane, better this to my mind, with 
all their native generosity and honesty and 
bravery, than that they should secretly and law¬ 
lessly partake of it in city cellars, like many a 
scheming business man of the States. 

Directly after breakfast Dave and I went 
aboard the Spitfire, the sturdy little steamer of 


THE LUMBERJACK 


27 


the Henry & Rust Lumber Company. After 
a wait of an hour, during which time many other 
lumberjacks came aboard, and a miscellaneous 
assortment of camp supplies was stored away on 
deck, we puffed up the narrow channel toward 
Port Browning. On the way an immense raft 
of fir logs pulled by a comparatively insignifi¬ 
cant tug-boat, passed by us. The little tug was 
grunting like a pig stuck in the mud and trying 
to get out, and the great log raft, with conical 
ends to offer as little resistance as possible, hung 
back so stubbornly that the huge towline was 
stretched as taut as if it were an iron rod inca¬ 
pable of bending. How slowly it moved! It was 
like watching the hour-hand of a clock. Yet 
that midget of a puffing thing was steadily draw¬ 
ing its mammoth burden nearer and nearer to the 
sawmill down the coast. 

“There are more than a half-thousand logs in 
that raft,” informed Dave, “and such big fellows 
would likely cut up into as much as three million 
feet of good lumber, which will net the logger 
about forty-five thousand dollars. If you could 
get close to that raft you would see that every 
log is stapled to a strong chain or cable, so that 
it cannot be washed away by rough seas. The 
outside or ‘wall-logs,’ which do the bulk of the 
holding in of the inner logs, are fastened end to 
end by chains which pass through holes bored in 


28 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

them. As it is, in spite of all care, high seas 
often catch a raft in tow and tear it apart, scat¬ 
tering many of its logs to the four winds, where¬ 
upon they become legitimate prey for many a 
lazy beachcomber. These shore-lines are dotted 
with beachcombers who get a good living from 
the misfortune of others.” 

“I should think those men out there on the 
raft would have a mighty perilous time of it in 
case of a storm,” I ventured, indicating a half- 
dozen booted chaps riding the log-raft at various 
points. In the hand of each was a long pole 
bearing a spike and a rigid hook. Several boats 
were hauled up on the logs beside them. 

“Those are the ‘rafters,’ ” said Dave. “It is 
their duty to keep a sharp eye on every log in 
their section, especially in rough seas, to guard 
against fastenings that show signs of weakening. 
The moment they find a staple pulling out, they 
must drive in another. If a log gets loose before 
they can do this, they jab their long pike into it, 
pushing it back into place, or use the hook when¬ 
ever they want to pull the log toward them. 
Sometimes the log is swept too far away from 
the raft for a rafter to reach it with his pole. 
Then he jumps in his small boat and rows after 
it. 

“You are right about the peril they meet. It’s 
a hard, dangerous, disagreeable job. More than 







(0 h.wmg Ltauoway 

LUMBERJACKS RIDING LOGS IN THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER AT CHEBOYGAN, MICH. 








THE LUMBERJACK 


29 


half the time they are wet to the skin, and cold 
winds make them shiver, with no chance to dry 
up till the day is done and the night crew changes 
places with them. I’ve done that work; I know 
how good a fellow feels when he gets back on 
the little tug and can stand in front of the boilers 
till his wet clothes are dry; how happy he is when 
he can swallow a cup of hot coffee in that stuffy 
little engine-pit; how quickly he goes to sleep, 
rolled up on deck almost anywhere. And as for 
dangerous—say, you wouldn’t be in this logging 
business long before you’d hear lots of stories of 
poor cusses who had been maimed, killed, or 
drowned while following the rafts to mill.” 

‘‘Can you recall an instance?” 

“A dozen of ’em. There was ‘Chuck’ Ans- 
butt. ‘Chuck’ had grown gray-haired in the 
business of rafting; knew every in and out of it; 
said that any darned fool that would get hurt 
was careless and deserved it; that he never had 
got hurt, and never would on a raft. Well, 
‘Chuck’ was a marvel rafter, all right. Most 
rafters can ‘ride a log’ in pretty good shape; but 
‘Chuck’ would take your breath away doing it. 
I have seen him go after an escaping log on an¬ 
other not as big as the one he was after, his spikes 
set deep in the little one’s bark, which in most 
places would be awash from his weight, his pike- 
pole used for a paddle till he could jab it into the 


30 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


runaway, him a-stepping lively as swells spun his 
support, for all the world like a squirrel in a 
treadmill cage. Then when he finally reached 
the other log, he would get his hook into it and 
draw himself up. After that he would use the 
runaway for his support, and paddle back with 
the smaller one. 

“He used to tell us—and I have no reason to 
doubt his word—that one fall when he was log¬ 
ging in Michigan, he had occasion to cross the 
Saginaw River. Having no boat, he decided to 
do the trick on a log, and lashed a sapling to his 
pike-pole so that he could push himself across. 
When he was about mid-stream he met a big 
black bear which had started to swim across from 
the opposite side. Either the bear had overesti¬ 
mated the distance, or had become weak from an 
old wound, for he was so tired out that he took 
a notion to ride on the same log with ‘Chuck/ 
Bruin’s weight sent that end of the log well 
under, and ‘Chuck’ had a lively time to keep on 
his end.” 

“I think if I had been in his place I should 
have let the bear had the whole shooting-match, 
and swam for shore,” I commented. 

“No woodsman would do that; a riverman feels 
insulted if anybody tries to part him from the 
log he has selected for his float. So I fancy it 
made ‘Chuck’ mad as a hornet when he took on 


THE LUMBERJACK 


31 


that other passenger. If he had had a better 
footing he said he would have pushed the 
creature off with his pike, and risked a combat 
with him there in mid-stream. As it was, he kept 
on poling for the other shore. He struck it 
considerably downstream. The bear dropped 
off the log, and ‘Chuck’ said he’d swear the brute 
gave him a grateful look and smile. Anyhow, 
‘Chuck’ didn’t come ashore till Mister Bear had 
wandered off.” 

“An exciting experience, I should say, Dave. 
But didn’t you hint at something serious having 
befallen ‘Chuck’ later?” 

“Yes; but I won’t dwell on that. I liked 
‘Chuck’ and it pains me to recall the details of his 
mishap. Two years ago, farther up the channel, 
a big raft he was on was struck by a heavy nor’- 
wester. The rafters had an awful time to keep 
the logs together. ‘Chuck’ was here, there, and 
everywhere, directing the men. All at once the 
tow-line, terribly strained, snapped near the raft. 
Poor ‘Chuck’ was close by just then. The raft 
end of the tow-line came whistling through the 
air with such force that it cut his head clean off 
at the neck.” 

Big Dave Crandell’s voice quivered as he 
spoke the last few words. He brushed his huge 
hand hastily across his eyes, and shrugged his 
great breadth of muscular shoulder. “Oh, well, 


32 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


it’s a part of this game,” he added—“a regular 
part of it, this losing of old friends. I’ve seen 
more’n one go. There was Neddy Straight, an¬ 
other rafter, who fell between some logs he was 
lacing, and had both legs ground off so badly 
that he died in our arms. And there was Sam 
Van Wormer, who was knocked off the raft by 
an uprising log, drawn under all the logs by the 
suction, and drowned like a kitten chucked in a 
cistern.” 

We made only a short stop at Port Browning, 
but it was long enough for me to witness one of 
the fiercest bare-fisted fights between two tall 
lumberjacks which I had ever seen between men 
of any kind. What an unbelievable amount of 
punishment they stood! Firm, sinewy flesh 
sprang back elastically at each blow received, 
and while their faces and hands were bleeding, 
each seemed powerless actually to hurt his ad¬ 
versary. They were still battling as actively as 
ever when our steamer left. 

“Those fellows are sober, or at least close to 
it,” observed Dave. “A lumberjack fights fairly 
and squarely then. When he is full of liquor, 
and ugly, he is a wild beast. The man leaves 
him. He is treacherous and cruel. I have seen 
normally generous, soft-hearted fellows, drunk 
and in a fight, jump on the adversary they have 


THE LUMBERJACK 


33 


knocked down and dance on his face with their 
spiked boots till the flesh was so shredded you 
wouldn’t recognize him if he was your best friend. 
Rum puts the devil into most men, in fact. This 
camp we’re bound for—and other good ones— 
won’t allow it brought in, and they prosper as a 
consequence. But I have been in camps that 
even kept a store and sold it on demand, and 
there conditions were of the worst.” 

It was a fine sunny morning as we came into 
the head of Coola Inlet and Dave told me that, 
just ahead, among the green-studded slopes of 
the Cascades, were the timberholdings of fir 
owned by the Henry & Rust Company. Higher 
up the snowy whiteness of glaciers showed 
against the azure sky. At the very bottom was 
the sea, a-ripple and a-sparkle. And in that 
mass of glinting, sun-flecked water, rode the 
great boomway of the camp—rode in a mammoth 
arc of chained logs which reached across the 
pretty little bay. Within the boundary, like a 
boy’s chips in a bathtub, floated hundreds of big 
brown logs; while nearby rode a little village of 
roughly-made shanties, all setting on great rafts 
which were cabled to trees along the shore. 

“You don’t mean to say this is the camp?” I 
demanded of Dave. “I thought all lumber 
camps were on the ground—in the woods.” 


34 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


“Remember you’re from the East,” laughed 
Dave. “There are no wooded coast ranges there; 
loggers have to go back in the interior for their 
supply, so they establish camps on the scene of 
operations. Here the mountains rise right up 
from the sea; the majority of the logs in a coast¬ 
line holding like ours can be chuted right down 
into the bay, and by having our buildings on 
floats we gain a lot, for as we clear a section our 
* camp steamer can pull our buildings up or down 
to the new place of cutting, A house moves 
easy on a raft, but I tell you it doesn’t on land— 
at least not in the heart of a big tangled forest.” 

The Spitfire made for a certain spot in the 
boom, where one end had been left open. 
Through this we steamed, and presently tied up 
to one of the largest of the rafts, containing a 
slab-sided warehouse, which Dave said was her 
regular wharf. Here nearly everybody got off, 
and for the next thirty minutes rowboats were 
busy conveying newly-arrived lumberjacks and 
their outfits over to the “office,” another raft con¬ 
taining a board building in which Mr. Rust, the 
junior boss, held forth. 

In all, Dave pointed out more than a dozen 
shanty-rafts to me, varying considerably in size, 
but each serving some necessary sheltering value 
to the activities of this big lumber camp. There 
was the supply-house, the sick-house, the bunk- 


THE LUMBERJACK 


35 


house, the cook-house, the mess-house, the forge- 
house, the store-house, the mail-house, the church- 
house, and several others. 

“Probably the mess-house and the bunk-house 
are the most popular places for us when we’re 
not at work,” said Dave with a grin. “We sure 
do get hungry and sleepy. I’ve seen the time I 
could bite a nail in two just for the pleasure of 
sinking my teeth in something; and could go to 
sleep standing up on one foot, it seemed. And 
on pay-days, once a month, the office-house is a 
mighty popular place—beats ’em all that day. 
Right afterward you can see many a lumberjack’s 
boat hustling for the store-house, where the com¬ 
pany sells ’em almost anything (except whiskey) 
from a jack-knife to a new skiff. But tobacco’s 
their main ‘buy,’ of course.” 

“What is the mail-house used for?” 

“Oh, that’s our little post-office. We have a 
postmaster of our own, and on steamer days he’s 
kept mighty busy getting off mail for civilization 
-—Jack’s friends back home—and handing out 
letters and postcards and little packages of 
goodies from mother or sweetheart or wife. If 
folks behind only knew how joyous the lonely 
boy is when he gets even a postcard from ’em, 
they’d write oftener than they do. Once we had 
a fellow with us in another camp who had come 
into the woods for the first time. He was only a 



36 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


boy, and awful lonely. It would tear your heart 
out to see the wistful look on his face when the 
other boys would get letters and he never would, 
because all his kin were gone. It worked so on 
me that I finally coaxed my sister to write him a 
few cheering lines. Say, it did me good to see 
him watch for her letters after that. And now 
they’re married, and happy and doing well in the 
East. Ain’t it nice?” 

I admitted it was nice. “What sort of a build¬ 
ing is this ‘church-house,’ Dave?” I inquired, 
looking across at it. 

“It ain’t every lumbering firm bothers about 
the religious need of its workers, but this one 
does,” he replied. “Our postmaster is an or¬ 
dained minister, and every Sunday gives the boys 
a sensible, heart-warming talk about their rela¬ 
tions to their God and their brother man. He 
don’t preach—if he did his shanty would be 
empty, for loggers just hate cant,—but he dis¬ 
cusses things square out with ’em, and sometimes 
shows ’em good stereopticon pictures about log¬ 
ging scenes and other things they’re familiar 
with and interested in, and you bet he never 
lacks for a full house Sunday evenings. No¬ 
body stays away except those in the sick-house, 
I imagine.” 

“That is your hospital, isn’t it?” 

“You’ve guessed it.” 


THE LUMBERJACK 


37 


“Do you have a regular doctor in camp?” 

“We sure do—and he’s no slouch; and has a 
man-nurse to help him. Conditions in camps 
where they have no doctor get pretty bad, and 
the boys don’t like to work in ’em, for they know 
the likelihood of getting hurt too well. I don’t 
believe that in this camp—and it’s conducted 
along safety-first lines far better than the aver¬ 
age—not a day goes by that our doctor 
doesn’t have to treat from three to five men, 
either for sickness or injuries. No matter how 
expert you are with an axe, a little slip, a sudden 
giving way of your support as you are striking, 
may give you an ugly gash in the foot or leg. A 
falling tree may catch you with its limbs. The 
donkey-engine’s cable may break and knock you 
flat with its torn steel fibers. A skidding log 
may roll on you. There’s lots of ways to need 
the doc’s care, dear old soul!” 

After fires—after some big building has col¬ 
lapsed—after tornadoes and freshets have lev¬ 
eled a great bridge—man may have to work 
walking and crawling high in the air, among 
tangled girders, twisted trusses, bent rods, of the 
wreckage. In just such fashion, next morning 
we saw men working upon the mountainside in 
the holdings of this big lumber camp. The “fall- 
ers” had pushed their way up along the slope— 
an incline almost cliff-like in places, and had left 







38 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


in their wake a jumble of criss-crossed prostrate 
giants, most of which had carried down with 
them a horde of smaller trees whose jagged 
limbs and lancelike branches stuck out in every 
direction. The “buckers” had wormed their way 
through the labyrinth of natural obstacles and 
the newly-created, had sawn the great trunks up 
into forty-foot lengths, and gone on to other 
conquests. The “barkers” had crawled like 
squirrels along the huge bolts, adzing off the 
bark to make them lighter and easier to skid. 
And now the “swampers” were at work in the 
midst of the rubbish, clearing out paths for the 
logs to follow in their travels to the water, paths 
along which the “riggers” would run their don¬ 
key-engine cables for the actual hauling. 

I found the country far different than that 
I was used to in the forests of the Eastern States. 
Here the slopes were very steep, the valleys nar¬ 
row, the trees enormous. The great Douglas 
fir and the gigantic Western spruce stunned me 
in their majesty and girth. Some of the fir were 
eight and ten feet through, and I had to look 
almost straight up in the air to see their tops 
or crowns. The ground was covered at least a 
foot deep with the mould of many centuries of 
leaf-fall, and moss-covered logs lay thickly upon 
it; in their hollow interiors I knew generations of 
wild animals had played and harbored. 



© Underwood and Underwood 

CUTTING OFF THE TOP OF A DOUGLAS FIR 180 FEET 

FROM THE GROUND 



















39 


THE LUMBERJACK 

This was a hard country to travel in—the 
roughest by far that I had ever tread. The 
underbrush was so thick that you could scarcely 
have broken your way through it. Frequently 
I struck patches of what is well-called “devil's 
club"—a tall bush with big leaves from whose 
under side grew long, sharp spikes, which tore 
my clothes no matter how careful I was. Unless 
the lumberjack plies his needle every night he 
soon becomes a regular rag-bag. 

Here and there, wherever the steepness of the 
ascent permitted, Dave showed me what he 
called “chutes." These were made of long, 
Straight logs, so hitched together that they formed 
a trough, which was kept well-greased by the 
“greasers." The shore chutes were the last stage 
of the logs’ journey overland, and every few 
minutes you could hear a loud booming sound 
as the twenty-ton sections of tree came shooting 
rocketlike down the incline. Then what a roar 
and swish of water as they ploughed their blunt 
noses into the sea! And what a thrilling sight 
it was to see the displaced water spout up¬ 
ward, sixty feet high, like an inverted cascade 
gone crazy! 

When I came to the chutes farther inland it 
was to find the “donks" placed at varying dis¬ 
tances, averaging perhaps a quarter-mile. And 
they were either at the bottom of a chute too 



40 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


horizontal to carry the logs down without the aid 
of man, or were at the termination of an incline 
or level stretch. In either case, the sturdy wire 
cable on their drums stretched away into the un¬ 
known, while the engineer of each “donk” waited 
for the pull of his “signaller,” beyond, where the 
big logs lay, announcing the fact that the 
“riggers” had sunk the hook of the cable into an¬ 
other train of logs. Then, with a penetrating 
toot! the engine would start her wind-in drum 
going. The cable would begin to accumulate, 
shrieking and groaning almost humanly under 
its heavy burden, and pretty soon the thumping 
and bumping logs would come snaking into 
view. 

Dave and I constantly met these traveling 
logs on our way back into the great woods. It 
gave me a queer feeling, with no one but our¬ 
selves in view, to see these huge bolts of wood 
emerge out of nowhere, go sluggishly by as if 
impelled by some diabolical power, and vanish 
in the leafy shadows behind us. Once I sug¬ 
gested to Dave that I had half a notion to hop 
on and have a little ride. 

“Don’t you do any such thing!” commanded 
he, pulling me back as a new train of logs ap¬ 
peared . “Those logs sometimes do a lot of sud¬ 
den rolling, and once on you you’d be mashed 
to mincemeat. Charley Harn got that dose one 


THE LUMBERJACK 


41 


time because he thought it would be an easy way 
to get back to grub ahead of the other fallers. 
And don’t get too close to this cable, either! If 
the hook pulled out, it would be sure to do some 
lively gymnastics of the lasso kind, and you 
might never see any more forests.” 

Here was the last donkey-engine, and over 
there we could see the loggers at work. A chill 
went up my back to note how many times they 
seemed on the verge of getting hurt, but these 
spinal affections increased when I really got 
among the intrepid fellows. 

“The doctor ought to be here,” I ventured, as 
I saw a chopper high up in the top of a recently 
cut tree which, in falling, had lodged against a 
standing one. He stood, with back braced 
against a stout limb, calmly chopping off the 
limb upon which he stood and which appeared to 
be sustaining the giant. He was chopping hard, 
and with rare skill, in his precarious position. 
Even down on the ground I could hear the sharp 
hiss of his breath, woodsman fashion, as he sank 
the bit of his keen axe into the limb. 

“That’s a ticklish job, sure enough,” admitted 
Dave; “but I’ve seen Tanner, up there, do it be¬ 
fore; and such work has to be done if we get 
that tree. You’ll notice he has a line around 
his waist that’s hitched to the standing tree. He 
—Gee! there she rips now.” 


42 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


“Rips” was the right word! All at once the 
lodged tree, with a crashing, tearing sound which 
all but made me jump, began falling. Tanner 
nonchalantly waited for the actual start. Then 
with a yell, “Look out below!” he dropped his 
axe, and sprang for the big limb of the other tree 
to which his rope was tied. He caught it in both 
hands, and stood mildly watching the final heave 
of the big giant as it settled upon the ground 
with a resounding smash. His fellows cheered 
loudly. I found myself doing the same thing. 
This was the sort of daring that made you yell 
for the winner without thought of whether you 
knew him or not. 

I wondered how Tanner would get down. 

“That won’t bother him” declared Dave 
Crandell. “Tanner’s a regular monkey in a 
tree. He probably noticed this one he’s in could 
be pretty well spanned with his long arms, or he 
wouldn’t have tackled the stunt he did. Here 
he comes now!” 

It was as Dave said. Tanner put his legs and 
arms around the smooth trunk of the tall spruce, 
and let himself slide a little way. Then he came 
to a stop by clutching tighter. After a momen¬ 
tary rest, he dropped to another station—and so 
on until he was among his congratulating 
friends. 

You cannot help feeling deep admiration for 


THE LUMBERJACK 


43 


the men who are doing such difficult and danger¬ 
ous work. As a matter of fact, it is not at all 
like ordinary logging as we find it in the Great 
Lake States, in the Northeast, and in the South. 
There the trees are so much smaller that less 
perilous methods of handling them can be 
adopted. Here in British Columbia it takes 
some fine engineering, worked out on the spot, 
to cope successfully with the ponderous giants. 
But, for the matter of that, all lumberjacks lead 
an arduous and adventurous life. 

There is much to make a man feel good—and 
he mostly does—at such healthy work. Condi¬ 
tions and surroundings are so varied and change¬ 
ful that he is dealing always with something new 
—stern obstacles which arouse all the sporting 
blood and combativeness in his man’s soul. 
With his puny axe or saw he loves to drop the 
huge trees which may take a half-day’s cutting 
to sever. He loves to pit his strength and skill 
against that of a human contemporary. He 
loves the smell of the cuttings, which is far 
sweeter to his nostrils than all the drugstore per¬ 
fumery ever made. He is so vain of being him¬ 
self that he has no desire to mope or growl. 


II 


THE FOREST RANGER 


A T first sight I thought he was a cowboy. 
He came riding up the trail, a broad- 
brimmed hat on his head and his muscu¬ 
lar shoulders swinging to the movements of his 
steed in that easy, unpretentious manner which 
always bespeaks the true horseman. But, as he 
drew nearer, I realized my mistake. This splen¬ 
did-looking young fellow with clean-cut features 
and keen grey eyes, wore a neat uniform of dull 
green, while pinned to his shirt beneath his open 
coat was a little bronze badge bearing a pine tree 
in relief and the words, “Forest Service.” 

“Howdy, friend,” he greeted, with a pleasant 
smile, as he reined in his pony beside my little 
campfire, where I had stopped to cook a noon¬ 
day meal. “Say, pard, your fried trout smells 
mighty good, that’s shore!” 

“If you’re not in too big a hurry I’d like to 
have you sample some of them with me,” I in¬ 
vited. 

He swung to the ground. “Don’t mind if I 
do, thanky,” said he, and tethered his animal to 

44 




THE FOREST RANGER 


45 


a nearby sapling close to my own horse. “Rid¬ 
ing the range gets a fellow’s appetite on a sharp 
edge, that’s shore.” 

“I take it you’re a Forest Ranger?” I queried, 
as he squatted down beside me after a handshake 
which made my fingers ache. I handed him 
a piece of buttered bread upon which I had 
placed a savory portion of speckled trout, done 
to a golden brown. We were in the heart of the 
Cascade Mountains. Above us towered great, 
lofty pines whose luxuriant crowrns shut out most 
of the sunlight, and whose trunks rose up sheer 
and straight, without a limb, as high as fifty or 
sixty feet. 

“You’ve sized me up right, pardner; that’s 
shore,” declared my guest, contentedly munch¬ 
ing. “My name’s Clare Peterson, and this is a 
National Forest. There are about a million 
acres in it. Altogether the Government has 
close to two hundred more forests like it, scat¬ 
tered among the mountains and reaching all the 
way from Mexico to the Canadian border, up 
and down the Rockies, the Sierras, and the Cas¬ 
cades.” 

“What is the Government’s idea in patrolling 
these vast stretches of forest?” I asked. 

“Because at last the people of this country 
have got their eyes opened. Until a few years 
ago everybody just cut and slashed timber pro- 


46 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


i 


miscuously, wasting more than they used. Our 
dads, and their dads, and the dads ahead of them, 
seemed to think there was so much timber in the 
United States that it could never be used up. 
Now we, in our day, are seeing things differently. 
We are realizing that we are using up our mag¬ 
nificent trees four times faster than they are 
growing back again; that the timber now stand¬ 
ing will all be gone before we young fellows are 
old men; that unless we plant more trees and 
care properly for our forests, preventing all 
forms of waste, this country of ours will soon be 
in a bad way—that’s shore.” 

“We’ve got to have wood and lumber,” I re¬ 
marked. 

“That’s shore,” said the Ranger. “We need 
trees the worst way. Who wants to sit down 
and read a newspaper in a chair made of iron?— 
or eat a meal off a brass table? Who wants to 
paddle a nickle-plated canoe?—or play croquet 
with cement balls? But that isn’t all, pardner. 
What’ll become of our beautiful wild birds and 
animals, with their protective covering gone? 
What will we grow in the dried-up lands that 
the forests now keep fertile by their stored-up 
moisture ? Look back at the unhappy fate of those 
countries in the Old World which an unthinking 
civilization has despoiled of their forests! The 
hills and valleys where grew the famous cedars 



THE FOREST RANGER 


47 


of Lebanon are almost treeless now; and Pales¬ 
tine, once so luxuriant with foliage, is bare and 
lonely. Splendid cities flourished upon the 
banks of the Tigris and Euphrates where were 
the hanging gardens of Babylon and the great 
hunting-parks of Nineveh; but now the river 
runs silently between muddy banks, infertile 
and abandoned to the plow. And so on through¬ 
out the Eastern Hemisphere wherever man has 
made a desert of the beautiful gardens of Na¬ 
ture.” 

“But some nations in the Old World have 
shown wisdom in this respect—Germany, for in¬ 
stance,” I commented, as I poured out a second 
cup of hot coffee for the Forest Ranger. 

“Yes; that’s shore. The great Black Forest 
of Germany is still one of the finest in the uni¬ 
verse, old as it is, and it’s all because Germany 
has been practicing forestry for the last three 
hundred years. The government there takes 
care of her forests as painstakingly as we here 
do our backyard gardens. Lumbermen are al¬ 
lowed to cut only trees the government experts 
mark; and they must cut them close to the 
ground, too, so as not to waste stumpage; and 
even the smallest branches and twigs are cut up 
and bundled and sold. Where trees are too 
thick to thrive, the scrubby ones are removed. 
Dead trees and wind-fallen trees are taken away 


48 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


also; the forests are never littered as in this 
country, inviting a disastrous fire as soon as a 
stray spark goes flying. And as fast as a tree 
is taken away another little one is set to grow¬ 
ing in its place. That means trees for the pres¬ 
ent and trees for the future to any country wise 
enough to adopt the scheme, doesn’t it, pard- 
ner?” 

“Indeed it does,” was my sententious re¬ 
sponse. I was becoming vastly interested in the 
subject. The science of forestry seemed in¬ 
vested with a new charm and a new importance. 
“America would have done well to have begun 
conserving her forests scores of years ago. Our 
lumbermen have been wiping out all our magnif¬ 
icent timber and never thinking of the future.” 

“They shore have, pardner. And they’d be 
doing it to-day right in our National Forests if 
the Government didn’t have such fellows as 
Rangers a-keeping ’em from it. These lumber¬ 
men are in such a hurry to get rich that, if Uncle 
Sam doesn’t put a halter on ’em, they’ll leave 
their grandchildren a desert for a legacy. They 
seem to think the only trees worth anything are 
the big ones they can cut up and sell right away. 
To get at these ‘ripe’ trees, and skid ’em out 
after they are cut, they smash down every little 
one that gets the least bit in their path. Such 
pig-headed, ornery selfishness as that has got to 


THE FOREST RANGER 


49 


stop. Uncle Sam says so. He says we 
Rangers are to see that it does stop. Were in 
these National Forests to show these dumb-fud- 
dled mercenary lumbermen that a calf will grow 
into a cow if it’s left alone long enough, and that 
there are a few other citizens in this country who 
want to see these 'calves’ keep on a-growing, 
too.” 

“I am just beginning to appreciate the size 
of your job, Mr. Peterson,” I observed. 

“Excuse me, pardner,” he broke in, wiping the 
crumbs from his mouth with the back of a horny 
hand, “but you shorely can’t appreciate my job 
until you’ve been a Forest Ranger yourself. 
We don’t stick to this job because there’s any 
soft snap about it—not on your life! It’s work 
every minute, here, there, and everywhere. And 
we don’t stick to it because of the salary. Uncle 
Sam pays us only twelve hundred dollars a year. 
On that we have to keep up a family—if we have 
one—and provide for two horses. But I like the 
work. I believe I’m doing my part for future 
generations; I shorely do. If I can help save a 
few of these magnificent, stately trees for the 
boys and girls of a coming generation to eat 
under and swing from and look up into when a 
thrush whistles cheerily to ’em, I’m pretty well 
satisfied.” 

I looked at him half-enviously. I felt that his 



50 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


was about the finest job in the whole world, es¬ 
pecially when, just then, the wind picked up and 
the green canopy over our heads began to wave 
gently and emit a pensive soughing which was 
at once the sweetest and saddest music I had ever 
heard. 

Clare Peterson stopped eating a moment and 
looked at me with a smile. “Hear it, pardner? 
Where could you go to find a finer-toned cathe¬ 
dral organ than that up there in the tree-tops? 
Isn’t it soothing? Isn’t it company? It shore 
is! I could go for days and days in this big for¬ 
est, all alone, and never get lonesome. I know 
everything like a brother; everything knows me. 
I love the big woods.” 

“How did you become a Forest Ranger, Mr. 
Peterson?” I asked, offering him a cup of water 
from the little spring which bubbled out from be¬ 
neath the sandstone rock at our backs. 

“Well,” said he, “I joined the Service in the 
same way a good many of the boys are doing 
nowadays. I am a Wisconsinite by birth. I 
was always an out-door boy, a Boy Scout. In 
High School I became interested in forestry. 
When I graduated I attended the Agricultural 
College of my State, and while there took up a 
special course in the science of the trees. In¬ 
stead of romping around the city or at the sea¬ 
shore during vacation times, I went off with a 


THE FOREST RANGER 


51 


party of other boys into the big forests of north¬ 
ern Wisconsin, and there we camped and studied 
right on the ground, under our instructor. It 
was jolly fun—shorely was interesting. While 
we were there two or three of the big men from 
the Forestry Service at Washington visited us 
and gave us lectures. Later I took an ex¬ 
amination under the Civil Service, passed it, and 
was called to Washington and given my ap¬ 
pointment out here as a regular Forest Ranger. 
As I said, most of us get in this way. We all 
love the work; it has a wonderful fascination 
about it for the out-door chap.” 

“Do you get your orders from the Chief For¬ 
ester, at Washington?” 

“Indirectly; that’s all. His orders are really 
sent first to our District Forester in Oregon, 
there being six such officers in the United States. 
The District Forester sends on the message to 
the proper one of his Forest Supervisors, of 
whom there are close to one hundrd and fifty— 
one for each National Forest. From my 
Supervisor I receive my own orders.” 

“How large is the domain you look after?” I 
asked. 

“I have charge of close to a hundred thousand 
acres, which is called a District. Most of the 
year I live in the woods in a little cabin which the 
Government built, but many a night I am camp- 


52 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ing out on the trail when darkness catches me far 
from home. My cabin is a considerable bit up 
the mountain, and I am making tracks for it 
now, after spending last night down among the 
foothills watching a new cattle range. Won’t 
you go along with me, pardner, and stop in and 
see my wife and little boy? They’ll shorely be 
tickled to have you take supper with us and 
spend the night. You’ll see a wonderful bit of 
scenery from up there, too.” 

I needed no second invitation. To spend a 
night away up on the mountain in a Forest 
Ranger’s cabin was an experience not offering it¬ 
self every day to a city man, so I thanked my 
new-found friend, got on my horse, and accom¬ 
panied him up the trail. 

“You spoke about looking after a new cattle 
range last night, Mr. Peterson,” I reminded. 
“Would you mind telling me what a Ranger has 
to do with feeding cattle?” 

“I shore wouldn’t mind, pardner. You see, 
in the old days before these National Forests 
were taken over by the Government, nobody in 
particular owned or took care of the land. The 
sheepmen and cattlemen were always quarrelling 
over which should have the range. Sheep and 
cattle in some parts of the mountains do not do 
well on the same ground, because cattle do not 
like to graze where sheep have been, owing to 



I 


FOREST RANGER ON PATROL DUTY ON M’T. SILCOX 














THE FOREST RANGER 


53 


the sheep nibbling the grass so close. Well, 
every spring it was a race between the sheepmen 
and the cattlemen to see which could get their 
stock first on the range. This beat-the-other- 
fellow spirit caused ’em to go into the range be¬ 
fore the grass was well up; and the consequence 
was, the hoofs of the animals trampled down and 
destroyed the tender forage and for the balance 
of the season the animals went half-starved. 
Lookee that bunch of sheep over yonder on that 
slope, will you? Do they look hungry?” 

My eyes followed his outstretched hand. 
Through the big spruces, on a slope covered with 
thick, strong grass, I saw hundreds of sleek, fat 
sheep contentedly grazing. Against that green, 
rugged background their white, woolly bodies 
and smooth little heads stood out in bold relief, 
forming one of the prettiest pictures anybody 
would care to see. I shook my head. 

“This kind of thing—I mean these old-time 
range wars—almost put the ranges out of busi¬ 
ness,” went on Clare Peterson. “It was a case 
of lean cattle and scrawny sheep that the cow¬ 
boys used to drive in to the round-up in those 
days—it shorely was! Now it’s all different. 
The Forest Supervisor, sent here by Uncle Sam, 
sees to it that the cattlemen and sheepmen are 
assigned to certain ranges of their own, and it 
then becomes the Ranger’s duty to see to it that 




54 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


the grazing does not start until the grass is fit 
for feed, and that the range is not overgrazed, 
and that one cattleman or sheepman does not en¬ 
croach upon the rights of another.” 

“Do they often do this?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“What do you do then?” 

“Tell the guilty fellow he must quit instanter, 
pardner. If he goes to pull his gun, we try to 
pull ours just a mite quicker; but usually he 
knows better than to get ugly, so he just agrees 
to be more careful of his animals thereafter. Of 
course he never admits he’s in any way to blame, 
nor his cowboys. It’s always the fault of the 
‘poor ignorant critters’! Very funny, that—it 
shorely is!” The Ranger smiled grimly as he 
said this. In the next breath he added: “In 
the beginning they all tried to bluff the Service, 
but it didn’t work. They found out the new 
Rangers knew their business and their rights, 
and weren’t afraid to enforce ’em. Before our 
time, the small rancher, with his handful of cattle 
or sheep, didn’t stand any show at all against the 
powerful big cattleman with his droves of thou¬ 
sands. The big fellow took the range, and 
choked out the little fellow. Now everybody 
gets his share of grazing lands, according to his 
needs; and the poor settler with his solitary milk- 
cow is encouraged by being allowed free grazing 


THE FOREST RANGER 55 

rights. These cattle and sheep I am in charge 
of will be so fat by fall that they can go straight 
to the big packing-houses in Chicago or Kansas 
City.” 

“I suppose that by this time most of the cattle¬ 
men really appreciate the good work Uncle Sam 
is doing for them through the Forest Service,” I 
remarked. 

“Yes, pardner, I think the most of ’em do. 
We have less and less trouble with ’em all the 
while, and every now and then some one of ’em 
will up and tell a Ranger that he’s glad we’re 
here on the job. But this isn’t all the Service 
is doing for the cattlemen and sheepmen. 
When we get a chance we trap and shoot all wild 
animals which make trouble for the sheep and 
cattle. And in this constant war on bears, 
mountain lions, coyotes, wolves, and the like, we 
often have some narrow escapes, for nine times 
out of ten we’re alone when we settle accounts 
with them. Every wolf or mountain lion killed 
is worth a hundred dollars in saved stock to the 
stockmen.” 

“Does the Government sell any of the timber 
in this National Forest?” I asked, admiring the 
stalwart, straight-boled spruces and pines 
through which our horses were picking their way 
along the trail. 

“Shore, pardner. If anybody wants to use 


5C HEROES OF THE WILDS 

anything in my District for any purpose,—and 
the Government encourages the use of this forest 
in every way which will not destroy it,—I go 
over matters with them right here on the ground, 
and give them a permit if their intentions suit me. 
In this way, among other rights, I allow lumber¬ 
men, for a just consideration in dollars and 
cents, to take out such timber as they want, to 
even set up a sawmill and cut up the trees into 
lumber. But they cannot cut any trees except 
those I mark for them, or set aside, and of course 
1 only designate such trees as are fully grown, 
those which ought to come down in order to give 
better stock a more favorable chance to grow. 
Then there are other duties we perform. Some 
people want to settle in the forest, and before I 
allow them to do so I satisfy myself that the land 
they select will really prove good soil for grow¬ 
ing such things as they wish to grow. Then 
there are prospectors who want to take out min¬ 
ing claims; and big capitalists who want to de¬ 
velop the waterpower in some of our swift 
mountain streams.” He drew in his horse, 
where the trail forked, and added: “Now if you 
don’t mind making a little side trip, we can drop 
off into the valley here to the left and see where 
lumbermen are cutting timber which they have 
bought from the Government.” 




THE FOREST RANGER 57 

I followed down the north slope of the moun¬ 
tain, and we soon came in sight of the cutting. 
The timber was being taken out of a very thick 
portion of the pine forest, where the Ranger said 
more sunlight was needed to nourish the younger 
trees coming on. And as we drew closer, I 
noticed that all of the big trees which the lumber¬ 
jacks were sawing down had been blazed. Clare 
Peterson, after cordially greeting the foreman 
and his men, went about keenly scrutinizing all 
the fallen timber. 

“They’re sticking to my orders, that’s shore,” 
he said to me, with satisfaction. “Every one of 
these logs has got my special blaze on it, and 
they’re leaving alone the young timber that 
should stand and mature. Notice how short the 
stumps are. We insist on them cutting that 
way; it saves waste. Notice, too, how careful 
they are not to let the falling trees come down so 
as to smash against the standing timber that 
must be left; and how careful they are to snake 
out the logs to the flume without banging ’em in¬ 
to little live trees, which would injure them. 
And you’ll maybe take account that all the 
trimmed boughs and limbs are being gathered 
together in piles by those fellows over yonder. 
These will be burned, under guard, when rains 
soak the ground, or after the first light snowfall, 


58 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


which will cause them to be consumed slowly and 
without scorching the bark of the timber left 
standing.” 

“What will you do with these open spots, now 
that the trees are taken out?” I asked. 

“Where the standing timber is fairly close— 
that is, properly separated for good growth—we 
will leave things as they are. But where a swath 
of ripe timber has been taken out, to forestall it 
from decay I shall plant seedlings to take the 
place of the cut trees. These will soon begin 
to sprout, to grow into bushy little pines, then 
into respectable saplings, and some day into 
magnificent trees six feet or more in diameter 
and perhaps seventy feet up to the first limb.” 

I shared his enthusiasm. A beautiful tree is 
a sight to make any heart glad, any soul to rise 
until the breath comes fast—especially when one 
sees such grand specimens all about him as I 
now witnessed. Recalling some of the small, 
stunted, scraggly pines I had seen in the un¬ 
cared-for woods back East, I observed: 

“Mr. Peterson, I have heard it said that under 
proper conditions a pine tree will ‘clean’ itself. 
What is meant by that?” 

“Right over yonder you will see a clump of 
pine saplings,” replied the Forest Ranger. 
“They stand pretty close—close enough to make 
dense shade, but not too close for decent growth. 



» 


THE FOREST RANGER 59 

The shade has prevented the lower branches 
from producing leaves or needles. See how 
dead-looking and bare they are! As a conse¬ 
quence, the lower branches will die. Then 
they will dry out, rot, fall off; so when the tree 
gets its full growth the trunk will be clean- 
shafted high up from the ground, clear up to 
where the bright sunlight reaches the lower limbs. 
That makes fine trunks, the best of lumber, lum¬ 
ber free of knots and as clear and sound as Na¬ 
ture can possibly make it. That’s shorely how 
pines ‘clean’ themselves, as Foresters say. On 
the other hand, if pines are separated too much, 
so they get lots of light, they grow up dwarfed, 
knurly and knotty, with live limbs close down to 
the ground, and are no good except for shade and 
firewood. So you see the science of Forestry 
says that for the best results they must be not 
too far apart nor too close together, but just 
right. It’s the happy medium that counts in 
our business, as well as in most things in life.” 

“Do these lumbermen ever try to take out 
trees you do not wish them to? In other words, 
are they ever tempted to steal timber?” I in¬ 
quired. 

“They shorely do—sometimes,” was the re¬ 
sponse of the Ranger. “I have in mind an ex¬ 
perience I had a couple of years ago out here in 
this same forest with a lumberman by the name 




60 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


of Jared Tossan. Tossan was a burly, unprin¬ 
cipled fellow, though a first-class boss in the 
woods for any crew of lumberjacks. He was 
sent out here by some rich lumbermen of San 
Francisco, who hired him with the express under¬ 
standing that he was to receive from them a 
bonus of five dollars for every thousand feet of 
lumber he could steal from the Government. 
Tossan laid his plans carefully, came on here, 
looked over the salable timber we had, and fi¬ 
nally made a purchase of a big ‘stand’ of prime 
Douglas fir over in one of the lower valleys. 
The Government gave him permission to saw on 
the ground, so in a very short time he had a big 
crew of men putting up a good-sized sawmill, 
and others were erecting rough cabins and shacks 
for the lumberjacks. 

“From the first I didn’t like the looks of Jared 
Tossan. He was a huge, red-faced, red-haired 
chap, with a sort of sneaking weak-blue eye. 
He tried to make himself extra agreeable with 
me, inviting me several times, when they got to 
cutting, to stop in the cook’s shack and have a 
meal with him and some of his foremen. To be 
sociable I joined them upon several occasions, 
but when one day Tossan began to hint around 
about my accepting a bribe to keep my mouth 
shut and eyes closed while he and his crew 
stepped outside of their cutting boundary and 


THE FOREST RANGER 


61 


stole fine timber still belonging to Uncle Sam, I 
shorely let him know instanter that I wasn’t of 
that yellow stripe. Then he pretended I had 
misunderstood him; that stealing timber from 
the Government was the last thing he would 
think of doing. But he didn’t fool me. I made 
up my mind to watch his operations with the 
sharpest kind of an eye, though as secretly as I 
could, so as not to make him unduly suspicious. 

“Well, Tossan’s backers in San Francisco 
didn’t do things by halves. They dammed up 
one of the mountain streams and made a pond 
to hold the cut logs; they even put in quite a net¬ 
work of narrow-gauge railway tracks for haul¬ 
ing the logs out of the woods. A powerful little 
locomotive did the pulling. All told, Tossan 
had several hundred lumberjacks under him, 
most of ’em honest enough in themselves, but 
ready to do his bidding if it should come to hook¬ 
ing out Uncle Sam’s logs, for they liked a bit 
of excitement, and the more timber Tossan 
found to cut, the longer their jobs and pay would 
last. 

“Close as I watched Tossan and his lumber¬ 
jacks I could find nothing out of the way till one 
day when I chanced to see a little wisp of smoke 
curling up from a densely timbered valley to the 
east of the lumbermen’s holdings. This locality 
was an out-of-the-way section of the mountain, 



62 


HEROES OF THE WILDS 


hemmed in by rough slopes and rocky walls ex¬ 
cept for one narrow entrance to the south, and 
I had very seldom visited it.” 

“I suppose, in this smoke, you scented a pos¬ 
sible incipient forest fire?” I remarked. 

“I shorely did, pardner. It is a part of my 
duty to see that fires don’t get a start in my dis¬ 
trict,” continued the Forest Ranger. “Every 
day from May until late in the fall, which is the 
fire hazard time, I ride the trails on the lookout 
for smoke. If I see any I just drop everything 
else and run my pony for it helter-skelter. You 
can see a smoke so far sometimes from the eleva¬ 
tions that it takes you a couple of days of hard 
riding to reach it, though it may look close by.” 

“Please don’t forget that story you were tell¬ 
ing, Mr. Peterson,” I reminded. 

At which he smiled, and continued: “Well, 
when I went for that wisp of curling smoke in 
Nevermore Valley, I was dumfounded to find 
that it didn’t seem to increase as I drew closer, 
as a fire in the brush or timber naturally would 
do. It just kept about so big, snaking up above 
the trees in an easy-going manner. I had be¬ 
gun to think that it came from a camper’s open 
fire, or from some interloping settler’s new 
cabin, when all at once I heard the faint but un¬ 
mistakable toot of a locomotive whistle. 

“Say, pardner, I shorely was puzzled at that. 



THE FOREST RANGER 


63 


For that toot came right up to me from the heart 
of Nevermore Valley, just at my feet, and I 
would have bet all the king’s horses against all 
the queen’s diamonds that there was no railroad 
down there in that wild, timber-infested jungle, 
where big white pines grew as thick as good tim¬ 
ber of the virgin kind can grow—splendid mon- 
archs worth easily thirty or forty dollars a thou¬ 
sand feet. We had been holding on to that 
superb stand of pine, waiting for a higher bidder 
than had yet put in an appearance. And now, 
as I noted the whistle sounded startlingly like the 
wheezy whistle of the camp locomotive belong¬ 
ing to Jared Tossan, an uneasy feeling swept 
over me, and a great fear gripped my heart. 
Had the cunning Tossan hoodwinked me after 
all? Had he succeeded in penetrating this rich 
tract of white pine with his ribbons of steel while 
I plodded up and down other trails, believing 
him a fairly square man? 

“As if to answer my troubled questions, I 
soon heard, as I cautiously advanced down the 
slope into the valley below, the faint but familiar 
crash of a falling tree. This was followed a few 
moments later by the sound of a second tree go- 
insr to the earth. Then came the sounds of 
men’s voices, loud orders and responses, laughs 
and curses, all blended in with the familiar noises 
of a typical lumber camp as I had become ac- 






64 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

quainted with them over at Tossan’s. The fact 
is, it was difficult for me to convince myself that 
I was not in a dream as to my location, and was 
not right then actually approaching Tossan’s 
camp in the valley to the westward. Yet I 
knew my senses were not deceiving me; this was 
shorely Nevermore Valley. 

“I fastened my horse to a sapling and on foot 
stole forward from tree to tree and bush to bush. 
I hadn’t gone far before an opening in the forest 
ahead caused me to use even more caution. 
Presently I was close enough to see a wide, yel¬ 
low, bare spot, miles across, a horrible slash in 
the beautiful green forest. And in the middle 
of it, surrounded by stacks on stacks of lumber, 
was a great sawmill very much like the mill of 
Jared Tossan’s. 

“I stared in utter amazement. A sawmill in 
Nevermore Valley, the choicest white pine stand 
Uncle Sam had in this forest! Even as I gazed, 
there came another toot of a locomotive whistle; 
and I saw the engine itself, whose smoke I had 
trailed so far, go puffing calmly along well-laid 
tracks, bringing a train of fresh cut logs out of 
the timber toward the mill-pond. 

“No second glance was needed to tell me that 
the lumbering here was a steal. Furthermore, 
in all its boldness and speed to escape discovery 
the cutting had been done carelessly and without 


THE FOREST RANGER 


65 


thought for the future. It had been a clean cut; 
what small saplings had escaped the saw had been 
crushed by the dropping and hauling of the large 
pines. The stumps were all about three feet 
high, which meant quick felling but the waste of 
thousands of feet of good timber. Only the 
straight, unbranched trunks had been used. The 
tops of the pines had not been lopped, and lay 
where they had fallen. It was a wilderness of 
yellow brush, a dry jungle, a pitiful waste of 
promising timber. The smell of pine pitch was 
so powerful that I could breathe little else. I 
was Forester enough to see that fire would in¬ 
evitably complete this ruin if no power 
intervened. But as shore as my name was Clare 
Peterson I meant to be that intervener. I made 
up my mind right there that I never would wait 
for these timber thieves to get through with their 
brassy job, because I knew their trick then would 
be to set fire to the powder-like tops of the fallen 
trees, create a forest fire, and thus destroy all 
evidence of their unlawful work. 

“You were in a rather ticklish position—one 
against so many rogues,” I ventured. 

The Ranger laughed lightly and whimsically. 
“I never stopped to weigh the difference in our 
forces,” he said, “which was probably a mistake, 
as you shall see presently. I was mad—mad as 
a hornet. I was even madder when, a few min- 




66 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


utes later, I saw Jared Tossan himself giving 
some orders to one of his bosses in front of one of 
the long rows of dirty tents and shacks near the 
mill and lumber piles. I strode straight for¬ 
ward, fire in my eye. Tossan and his foreman 
turned pale when they saw who I was. Tossan 
said something in a low tone to a low-browed 
Mexican cook, and he slipped into the nearest 
tent. The next moment I stopped in front of 
the superintendent of the lumber crew. 

“Tossan had regained his composure. He 
saw that it would be idle to attempt to play in¬ 
nocent any longer. ‘Welcome to our Camp No. 
2, Mr. Peterson,’ he said dryly. ‘What do you 
think of it?’ 

“ ‘I think, you confounded rascal, that your 
Camp No. 2 will be a thing of the past in a 
mighty short time,’ I said with complete frank¬ 
ness. ‘Your own liberty, too, shall be a matter 
of short consideration!’ 

“ ‘What do you propose to do about this mat¬ 
ter, my friend?’ asked Tossan curiously and, I 
could see, not without uneasiness. 

“ ‘Report you to the Chief Forester at Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., just as soon as I can get to a tele¬ 
graph office,’ I informed. 

“His florid face went the color of a beet. He 
uttered an oath, and reached toward his hip. 
But I was on the alert, and just the shade of a 


THE FOREST RANGER 


67 


second quicker. I whipped my own 45-calibre 
Colt from its holster. As he elevated his gun 
in my direction, my Colt barked. He uttered a 
howl of pain, his pistol fell to the ground, and he 
seized his bleeding wrist in the fingers of the 
other hand; for I had purposely shot him so as to 
make him drop his weapon. 

“At that very moment somebody assailed me 
from behind. I whirled around, to find it was 
the Mexican. He had tried to lay me out with a 
blow of a pistol butt over the head, but had hit 
me only grazingly. We grappled and struggled 
a moment, when I managed to get in a short hook 
of my fist under his chin and he reeled to the 
ground. Before I could straighten up, other 
arms pinned me. Somebody else threw himself 
upon me, and then came a thud on my head; 
things turned black, and I knew no more. 

“When I came to myself I was bound hand 
and foot with ropes. My head shorely did ache 
where one of the lumberjacks had hit me a 
crack with a billet of wood, and I could feel a 
lump there as big as a good-sized doorknob. All 
around me was the woods. Close by snapped a 
campfire, while over it, cooking a piece of meat 
on a sharp stick, stood a tall, frowsy fellow I 
had noticed just before I was struck down. The 
Mexican squatted near, smoking a cigarette. 
Every few minutes he rolled an eye toward me. 


68 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


I could see he had been set to guard against my 
escape. Not far from him, with his back partly 
toward me, was the burly figure of Jared Tossan 
himself. He was eating. 

“The Mexican was the first to see me move, 
and lost no time in calling the attention of Tossan 
to the fact. Then Tossan arose, and came over 
to where I was lying, stiff and sore. 

“ ‘Well, Mister Forest Ranger, you thought 
you were pretty doggone smart to ketch me at 
my little game of carry in’ on two lumber camps 
at once, didn’t you?’ said he. I didn’t answer. 
Then he went on, with a sneer: ‘And you 
thought you’d send me to prison by squealing on 
me to Uncle Sam, didn’t you? Eh? Well, 
Clare Peterson, you see now you ain’t no match 
for me. Know what I’m goin’ to do with you? 
I’m goin’ to seal you up in a cave I know of not 
far from here—a cave nobody but the Greaser 
and me knows about, and we’re goin’ to leave 
you there to rot for all we care. While you’re 
dyin’ by inches, I’ll coolly finish this cut of pine 
here in Nevermore Valley, pull out my outfit, 
and then the Greaser and me will set fire to the 
timber all around and cover our little job under 
a heap of ashes that may stretch from one end 
to the other of your cussed National Forest for 
all I care.’ 

“Real cheering prospect for me, wasn’t it. 



THE FOREST RANGER 


69 


pardner? You bet I told Tossan what I thought 
of him, and didn’t mince words about it, either. 
He just laughed sardonically, declaring he was 
above hitting a bound man for being sassy. 
Well, shore enough, he and his precious lumber¬ 
jacks took me to that cave he spoke of, a small 
affair in the wall of a canon which we reached a 
few hours later. It was well hidden by rocks 
and bushes. I had passed it many a time, and 
never knew it was there. 

“They shoved me inside without a thing to eat 
or drink, then rolled a big rock up against the 
small opening, completely covering it except for 
several small holes about the size of my arm. 
Listening, I could hear the hoof beats of their 
horses and my own as they departed down the 
flinty trail, taking my animal with them.” 

“You were in a rather bad predicament, I 
should say,” I remarked. 

“It shorely seemed so to me, pardner—it 
shorely did. But I was in luck without knowing 
it. A few hours after they had gone, I had been 
all over that cave, from corner to corner. It was 
so dark in there I couldn’t see my hand in front 
of my face, but fortunately they had neglected 
to take my matchsafe from me when they re¬ 
lieved me of my gun, and by burning a dozen or 
so matches I was able to satisfy myself that 
there was no other way out except by the barri- 


70 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


caded opening. My spirits fell, then, like a lump 
of lead. I had already tried that big rock, and 
found that I could not budge it an inch. But as 
I recalled that I had noticed an old pick-axe, 
rusty and half-handled in one corner, where evi¬ 
dently some prospector of the past had forgotten 
or discarded it, my courage returned, for I had 
an idea. 

“Securing the pick-axe I made my way back to 
the entrance, chose the largest of the several 
small apertures through which a little daylight 
filtered at the bottom, and began hacking away. 
That cave floor wasn’t as hard as I had thought. 
It was mostly sandstone, and the old pick began 
to make an impression in a very short time. But 
it was a slow job hacking out a hole large enough 
to allow my body to pass through. I couldn’t dig 
and hold matches at the same time, so I had to 
peck away in the darkness, on my knees, often 
hitting the ceiling, which was less than head high. 
But, when it seemed I could not strike a half- 
dozen more blows, from sheer weakness, I suc¬ 
ceeded in forming a hole large enough to admit 
my body by considerable crowding. 

“Say, pardner, I never was so glad to see sun¬ 
light, treetops, and the blue heavens, in all my 
life as I was right then. Sweet candy! things did 
look good out there in the open. I spent fifteen 
or twenty minutes stretching my legs, then made 


THE FOREST RANGER 


71 


fast tracks through the timber toward my little 
cabin up the mountain—the one where we’re 
headed for now. I didn’t get there till the next 
morning, but once there I shorely lost no time in 
telephoning to the Forest Supervisor over on 
Nagoobey Ridge. After that I just laid low for 
a spell. In the meantime the Supervisor got in 
touch with the Chief Forester at Washington, 
and one day not long afterward I had the pleas¬ 
ure of conducting a little surprise party—in the 
form of a half-hundred soldiers from Fort 
Walla-Walla—over to see Jared Tossan and his 
second lumber camp. Tossan and the Mexican 
were dumfounded when we arrived. Realizing 
the folly of resistance, they submitted to arrest, 
and were taken to town and given a trial. Of 
course they were convicted, for they had been 
caught redhanded. Tossan was given ten years 
in the penitentiary, and his two accomplices three 
years each. Not only that, but Tossan’s chiefs in 
San Francisco were found guilty of conspiracy 
to defraud the Government, and three of them, 
constituting the lumber firm, were heavily fined 
and also imprisoned.” 

After a little further inspection of the lumber 
camp we had visited, the Forest Ranger and I 
departed. As we continued up the trail leading 
toward his cabin home, Clare Peterson s horse 
suddenly shied, likewise my own. In the bend 


72 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


of the trail just ahead we saw a coil of gal¬ 
vanized wire. A moment later we were passing 
several men, who, half-way up the trunks of as 
many trees, seemed to be fastening up wire. 
My companion informed me that this was a new 
telephone line. It was certainly the strangest- 
looking telephone line I had ever met. 

“You will see a great deal in this Forest that 
may look like crude work to you,” remarked the 
Ranger. “The Government does not give us all 
the money we need for improvements. But if 
you lived here, and a forest fire was closing in 
around your home, as it often does with the set¬ 
tlers, you would be thankful if you could send a 
message for help over that roughly strung wire. 
These telephone lines between the settlements 
and the Rangers’ cabins at high points along the 
mountain ranges are worth their weight in gold. 
Good trails and telephone lines are the best safe¬ 
guards against fires—telephones to call in men 
for the fight, and trails for them to travel over 
with their pack-horses carrying fire-extinguish¬ 
ing implements. Already nearly ten-thousand 
miles of trails have been built in National For¬ 
ests.” 

As our horses plodded up the steady grade, 
the bridle reins hanging loose, the Ranger talked 
about the fires, which he said were the worst 
enemy the Forest Service seemed to have. 








THE FOREST RANGER 


73 


“You see, pardner,” he said, “a fire in a forest 
is a good deal like a fire in a building. If you 
reach it just as it starts, or soon after, it is an 
easy matter to put it out; but if it gets a few 
hours’ lead of you, especially when the wind is 
blowing, a hundred brave men cannot do what 
one man could have done in the beginning. The 
bigger a forest fire gets the hotter it is, and the 
faster it travels. Such fires as you have back 
East in those little groves of trees called a woods, 
are nothing compared to the roaring furnaces re¬ 
sulting when these great forests of pitchy stand¬ 
ing timber and bone-dry logs and underbrush, so 
thick you can hardly get through it in some 
places, once catch fire. Just the hot breath from 
such a conflagration will often cook the flesh on 
your hands or face, though you may be a half- 
mile from the scene. It is more terrible than 
anything you can picture in your mind. You 
have to see a forest fire out here in the West 
raging out of control to know what one of them 
is really like.” 

“How do these fires start, Mr. Peterson?” 

“In lots of ways—and all the outcome of some¬ 
body’s plumb carelessness, as a rule. Railroad 
locomotives start many of them. The sparks 
thrown out from their smokestacks do the job. 
That’s why more engines ought to burn oil in¬ 
stead of coal. Then there are the people who are 


74 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


continually traveling through forested land, such 
as stockmen, prospectors, hunters, campers, 
automobile tourists, and so on. All these chaps 
have to make fires to cook by and keep them¬ 
selves warm at night, and some of them are care¬ 
less in spite of all we Rangers and the educators 
in general are doing to teach them to be careful. 
Besides, lightning does its share in kindling fires. 
You know we have the most violent kind of 
electrical storms in these mountains. Very often 
such storms bring little or no rain, but much 
thunder and lightning. If the lightning strikes a 
tree—particularly a dead tree—it often means a 
fire. Then there is that other source of fires I 
have already shown you by my story of Jared 
Tossan: I mean the fires which are started by 
cowards, blacklegs, and conspirators for some 
selfish reason, men who either wish to get even 
with the Government for some fancied slight, 
or men who wish to conceal evidence of their 
crimes.” 

A little later, high up on the mountain, on a 
little plateau where the air was thin and rare, but 
most invigorating to those accustomed to it, we 
came upon a trim log-cabin which my companion 
said was his own. A merry yodeling call from 
Clare Peterson’s throat brought to the door a 
plainly-dressed but pretty young woman, with 
two bright-faced children. They gave affection- 






THE FOREST RANGER 


75 


ate greeting to the Ranger, and welcomed me 
most heartily. 

I shall never forget the fine Western hospital¬ 
ity of these rugged people during my short so¬ 
journ among them; how considerate of my wel¬ 
fare all were, even down to the smaller of the 
children; how splendidly Mrs. Peterson cooked 
the supper we ate on the plain, neatly-covered 
pine table in the little cabin that night; how 
courteously and good-naturedly Clare Peterson 
himself answered all my fool questions about his 
work there in the great wilderness of this moun- 
tainland. 

After breakfast the next morning we went out 
and climbed to the dizzy platform of a high look¬ 
out tower, made of the straightest of cedar boles 
which reached up a good seventy-five feet into 
the thin air. 

“These towers are erected on the tops of ele¬ 
vations in a dozen or more places throughout the 
Forest,” said the Ranger. “We use them to 
make observations from. Just notice what a 
commanding view you get up here.” 

It was truly a wonderful, most inspiring sight 
to me. Beyond us, like a gigantic map in color, 
wave after wave of serrated mountain range 
rose up as far as the eye could travel, waves mys¬ 
tically softened by the intervening film of atmos¬ 
phere. My companion told me the names of the 


76 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

ranges, and pointed out the natural boundaries 
of his own domain. One hundred thousand 
acres sounds like a vast territory for one man to 
look after, but when you see it spread out in 
front of you, as I did, it seems vaster still. 
Through that labyrinth of crags, plateaus, val¬ 
leys, canons, ridges, slopes, and masses of matted 
green foliage, it spread twenty miles one way 
and ten miles the other. It encompassed snowy 
peaks ten thousand feet high, while far below vel¬ 
vety valleys bearing grazing herds of cattle and 
sheep were garnered in by its girdle. 

On the platform of the crude tower where we 
stood I was shown a large oriented map of the 
district, disclosed when its weather-proof case 
was unlocked and opened. 

“The various towers and attendant cabins in 
the Forest are connected to each other and to the 
Supervisor’s headquarters by telephone,” said 
Peterson. “The wires are strung through the 
Forest from tree to tree, as we saw in coming up 
here, and a trail follows each line—a trail which 
the patrolmen must constantly go over, with 
their packs on their backs, to remove windfalls 
and reconnect wires which have been put out of 
commission by moose antlers or storm conditions, 

“The Forest Service has already built seven 
thousand miles of this crude telephone line, 
counting all of its Forests, but as much as seven 



THE FOREST RANGER 


77 


times that amount will be required before all dis¬ 
tricts are properly supplied. A recent installa¬ 
tion is a portable telephone set. This is carried 
by each patrolman. He can tap a line at any 
point and report a forest fire to headquarters 
without losing precious time in racing clear back 
to the lookout station.” 

“What would you do if you were to detect a 
suspicious smoke rising up away off in yonder 
valley, Mr. Peterson?” I asked, pointing to a 
timbered depression to the eastward. 

“Do? Why, just as quick as my glasses 
showed it to me, I’d get its range with my ali¬ 
dade, then compare my observation with the map 
of the district which I have spread out on my 
table, and that would give me its exact direction 
and approximate distance. Then I’d call up my 
Supervisor, and tell him over the telephone what 
I had discovered. He would look after inform¬ 
ing other Rangers and the settlers most con¬ 
cerned, telling ’em where to head for with their 
fire-fighting tools. In the meantime I would 
snatch up my own axe, pail, and shovel, and my 
wife would hastily fill a pouch with food and my 
canteen with water—for there wouldn’t be any 
telling, pardner, when I’d get back; maybe two 
or three hours; maybe two or three days; maybe 
—never! I’d kiss her and the children good-bye; 
jump on Bessie, my horse, and then go tearing 


78 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

toward that smoke. When I would get within 
a few miles of the fire’s front, I might be able to 
smell the smoke as well as see it. Deer, coyotes, 
and smaller animals would be dashing by me 
with terror in their eyes and movements. I 
would picket my horse in a safe place, and make 
my way on foot toward that fire. Then, if I 
could find a steep slope about a half-mile in front 
of the blaze, I’d start a backfire at the foot of the 
slope.” 

“How would you do that?” I asked. 

“First I’d remove all the burnable rubbish in 
a straight line along the slope bottom, heaping 
it up into a sort of hedge. Then I’d get busy 
with my spade, throwing up as much damp earth 
back of it as I could, so the fire couldn’t go that 
way. A touch of a match, and zip! that pile of 
dry twigs and so-forth would go flaring up—a 
respectable fire of its own. By the time the big 
fire reached the spot, the ground would be a 
charred mass of ashes, there would be nothing 
for the giant to feed on, and it would shorely die 
out.” 

“But,” I objected, “of course you, all alone, 
would not always have time to do so much pre¬ 
ventative work as all this spading before the big 
fire would be upon you?” 

“Shorely, pardner; I was just supposing real 
nice conditions, Lots of times I could not do 


THE FOREST RANGER 


79 


that alone; if other Rangers or landowners did 
not appear to lend a hand, I would have to ske¬ 
daddle to save my own life. But I’d run my 
horse fast enough to gain on the fire; and would 
collect reinforcements as I went; and after 
awhile my friends and I would be so far ahead 
we could make a backfire which probably would 
be successful. The chances are, sooner or later, 
you know, we could use plows for turning up the 
sod, and have scores of men working tooth and 
nail at the job of making an insurmountable de¬ 
nuded belt which that fire could not jump.” 

“Fighting a big forest fire must be the most 
gruelling kind of work,” was my remark. 

“Pardner, you’d say so if you was ever in one 
once! Sometimes we have to battle the flames 
for a week at a time, without a wink of sleep. 
Our eyes smart with the smoke until it seems we 
will go mad; our faces are so red and raw from 
the intense heat that, to touch them with a finger, 
would make us yell. Our clothes get so hot 
they smoke—sometimes even catch afire, and we 
have to slap like lightning to put out the spots. 
Our mouths get so parched, and our tongues so 
thick, that we can only mumble when we give 
orders to each other. In big fires like that, we 
may fight several hours in one stand, only to be 
forced back in the end and have to seek another 
stand—another, another, and another. Espe- 



80 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


cially when we are trying to keep a fire from 
sweeping a town do we fight hard, for then no 
real man will give up until death takes him; he 
can’t bear to think of hundreds of women and 
children becoming victims of so horrible a mon¬ 
ster. Yes, pardner, those shorely are the kinds 
of fire that try a man’s soul. Unlike the soldier 
on the firing-line, your Ranger fights to save as 
many lives as he can instead of to see how many 
he can destroy. He has no thundering rattle of 
musketry and cannon to stir up his courage; no 
war-correspondents waiting upon his movements 
to send back to their newspapers stories of his 
deeds of daring. No; your Ranger just plugs 
doggedly and silently at his job, suffering all of 
the tortures of the damned much of the time 
while he is doing it, but gladly doing it for the 
sake of humanity, never thinking of praise, and 
with no hope of reward or promotion.” 

“They say one of the greatest forest fires, 
from point of destructiveness, was that of Pesh- 
tigo,” I said. “Is this true?” 

“It shorely was bad enough,” answered the 
Ranger. “It happened in 1871, though,—long 
before my time as a fire-fighter. I have heard 
the boys talk about it. That fire started in the 
fall, and swept over more than two thousand 
square miles of Wisconsin territory. Besides 
destroying the town of Peshtigo, it took the lives 



THE FOREST RANGER 


81 


of fifteen hundred persons. At Hinckley, Min¬ 
nesota, there was another disastrous forest fire 
in the fall of 1894. There, numerous small fires 
had been allowed to burn, which might have been 
put out had the people not thought them quite 
harmless and let them go. Then all at once a 
heavy wind sprang up; the several small fires 
were swept together in the twinkling of an eye, 
and a great ‘crown’ fire resulted. This came 
roaring down upon the town of Hinckley, laid it 
in ashes, and then consumed six other towns. 
Five hundred people were burned to death, and 
two thousand homes destroyed. But those fires 
were all before the days of the National Forests, 
and there was no such thing as Rangers fight¬ 
ing against them. Since the establishment of 
the National Forests and the protective system 
of patrols, this country has not known any such 
terrifying conflagrations. The one occurring in 
1910 in the Pacific Northwest is probably the 
worst of recent fires.” 

“Is not that the fire in which Ranger Pulaski 
gained country-wide renown?” I inquired, all 
interest at once. 

“The same,” responded Ranger Peterson, 
gazing reflectively off toward the pinon-dotted 
mountain slope across the shadowed valley. 
“That year was the driest, they say, ever known 
in the West, particularly in northern Idaho and 


82 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


northwestern Montana. Practically no rain fell 
from early spring until October. The forests 
became as dry as tinder, with little fires spring¬ 
ing up here and there all over. In this section 
the National Forests are in many cases still with¬ 
out roads, trails, or telephones, so that although 
they were patrolled by Rangers, the small fires 
starting at remote points could not be reached 
before they had gained such proportions as to 
make them very difficult to extinguish. 

“The last week of July, a severe electric 
storm, carrying not enough rain to lay the dust, 
passed over the northern Rocky Mountains, set¬ 
ting many more fires. The Coeur d’Alene Moun¬ 
tains in particular suffered from these fires. In 
three days the Forest Rangers put out nine fires 
started by lightning, and five others were in such 
remote and inaccessible places that they could 
not be reached. The latter conflagrations grew 
rapidly. Soon it was seen that heroic measures 
must shorely be taken to put them out. At one 
time 1,800 men, besides two companies of sol¬ 
diers, were fighting fires in the Coeur d’Alene 
forest alone, and other large crews were fight¬ 
ing fires in other parts of the northwestern for¬ 
ests. The men fought stubbornly, working 
day and night, building trenches around the fires 
and gradually confining them to a small area. 

“All fires seemed under control, when, on Au- 


THE FOREST RANGER 


88 


gust 20th, a terrific hurricane sprang up. It 
swept all the separate fires together, like you 
would take a broom and whisk several little piles 
of dirt into one, and in no time—so they say— 
there was just one monstrous big wall of flame 
many miles long, towering in licking tongues al¬ 
most mountain high, and speeding forward with 
a roar that was deafening as well as terrifying. 
Many of the fire-fighters were directly in the 
path of the holocaust. It was impossible that 
all should escape. Seventy-nine were caught 
and burned to a cinder—so quickly, probably, 
that they did not suffer much. And if it had not 
been for the skill and nerve of the Rangers in 
charge of the crews a very much larger number 
shorely would have perished. Among the many 
notable instances of heroism performed in that 
fire, I imagine none stands out clearer, or better 
shows up the true character of the average For¬ 
est Ranger, than the exploit of Ranger Pulaski, 
from some of whose friends, with him at the time, 
I obtained the story.” 

“Tell me this yarn,” I begged. 

“It seems that Pulaski was in charge of about 
150 men. These had been distributed over a dis¬ 
trict of several miles, stretching along the divide 
between Big Creek, of the Coeur d’Alene River, 
and Big Creek of the St. Joe River. As the 
peril increased he brought together about forty 


84 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


of his men who were in the danger zone, and 
started with them down the mountain toward 
Wallace, Idaho, a distance of ten miles. When 
about half way down the slope he found that he 
was cut off by new fires. 

“At once Pulaski’s men—largely made up of 
settlers and ranchers—became panic-stricken; 
but he asked them to trust in him and he would 
yet get them to a place of safety. Being thor¬ 
oughly familiar with the region, he knew of two 
old prospect tunnels near by, and it had occurred 
to him that one of these would prove a good ref¬ 
uge. One of these tunnels was about fifty feet 
long, running straight back into the hillside, and 
the other was about twice that length. The lat¬ 
ter seemed to promise the better refuge for so 
large a party. 

“But now the fire was creeping around in be¬ 
tween them, and the heat was so great that Pula¬ 
ski saw the gauntlet never could be run with 
faces unprotected. His fertile brain prompted 
him to wet two gunny sacks—all they had—and 
with these pulled over their heads, he and an¬ 
other man hurried through the blistering brush 
to the mouth of the largest tunnel. Here Pula¬ 
ski pushed his companion inside. Then he 
dashed back, with his own gunny sack on his 
head, and the other chap’s in his hand. In this 
fashion, one after another, he piloted all of his 



THE FOREST RANGER 


85 


men except one into the refuge. That one, poor 
fellow, was the last. He was caught by the on- 
rushing flames before Pulaski could reach him, 
and his agonized cries, as he died, clearly reached 
the ears of those in the tunnel through the swirl¬ 
ing mass of smoke and flame which now envel¬ 
oped everything outside. 

“After all, pardner, that shorely was a doubt¬ 
ful refuge—as those fellows soon found out. 
The heat and smoke came in in such suffocating 
surges that all of them would have died in a few 
minutes had not the resourceful Pulaski fastened 
the two gunny sacks together and held them up 
in the entrance with his own hands. As it was, 
that couldn’t keep out all the smoke, and it grad¬ 
ually got so thick the men couldn’t see each other, 
and everybody was a-coughing. 

“ ‘Lie down on your bellies, you fools!’ cried 
Pulaski. ‘Lots better air there.’ 

“So they stretched out, and for a while 
breathed more freely. They didn’t know until 
afterward that all that time their leader’s hands, 
in holding up the gunny sacks, were blistering 
from the intense heat just beyond; that his face 
was screwed up in silent torture for their sake. 
Several times the sacks caught afire, and he had 
to drop them long enough to stamp it out, be¬ 
fore they could be jerked back into service. His 
hands were fairly parboiled—but he hung on like 



86 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


grim death—held on until, finally, the charred, 
rotten fabric parted in a last fall and was no 
longer usable. 

“With the advent of fresh smoke, the men be¬ 
came quite frantic and uncontrollable. Blinded, 
choking, ahnost crazed, they began rushing, one 
by one toward the entrance to the tunnel. But 
the huge, determined bulk of Pulaski was inter¬ 
posed between them and the seething, frightful 
death waiting for them on the other side. He 
pushed first one and then another back, implor¬ 
ing them to stay and fight it out to the last. 
But they only came at him in larger numbers, 
each with the strength of a madman. 

“I guess Pulaski saw that he had reached a 

crisis; for, quick as a flash, he drew his revolver 

and fired over their heads. The men sav 

%/ 

the reverberation in that hollow place was some¬ 
thing awful; that it scared them for a minute 
almost stiff. The next thing they knew Pulaski 
was bawling like one gone daft himself: ‘Drop 
on your bellies, you doggone idiots! I can’t see 
you, but I’m going to begin shooting at the 
height of your bodies right away!’ Then two 
more shots roared out, and those fellows went 
down like apples dropping from a tree. A min¬ 
ute later, as they lay there shivering and cough¬ 
ing, another couple of shots split the silence. 

“No man knows how long they were stretched 


THE FOREST RANGER 87 

out in that frightful hole in the side of the moun¬ 
tain. Probably all of them were unconscious 
except one. This fellow was able to crawl diz¬ 
zily out, over Pulaski’s body, to find that the fire 
had passed, leaving a black swath behind it. He 
dragged himself to the town of Wallace, told his 
story to the Forest Supervisor at the station 
there, and at once a relief party was organized. 
All of the men were saved with the exception of 
five, who had been smothered. It was a long 
time before Pulaski’s burns had healed, and he 
will bear the scars of his heroism to the grave 
with him. I don’t say it because I’m of the 
breed myself, pardner, but Pulaski is shorely the 
kind of a man most all of us Rangers try to be.” 

And I believed Ranger Peterson. Forest 
Rangers are “shorely” and unequivocally very 
brave, self-sacrificing fellows! 



Ill 

THE TEXAS RANGER 

% 

L IKE strands of highly colored thread in 
an Indian blanket, the history and tradi¬ 
tions of the Texas Rangers are woven 
into the annals of the Lone Star State. The 
Rangers not only did much in the up-building of 
Texas, which became the largest State in the 
Union, but they defended it as well against the 
hostilities of Mexicans, redskins, and bandits. 
And to-day they are just as active in keeping 
Texas free of dishonesty and crime as they were 
in the earliest portion of its history. 

In the very beginning the Rangers were more 
of a volunteer force than an organization; that is 
to say, they were not paid a regular wage, as 
now, and they were free to quit whenever the 
notion seized them. That was away back in the 
early Thirties—almost a century ago. Their 
operations were much wilder than of later times, 
but it is safe to say that if their methods were 
harsher they were doubtless necessary, for those 
were lawless days when transgressors against the 

peace of the majority had to be dealt with in 

88 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


89 


the most summary manner. The Indian, the 
white man, the Mexican, and the 4 ‘Gringo” were 
sworn enemies. So bitter was their hatred 
against each other that none lost an opportunity 
to vent his wrath, and hardly a sun ever set with¬ 
out witnessing somewhere along the border ex¬ 
citing encounters among these factions. 

Until the Indian question in the United States 
was finally settled to the satisfaction of whites 
and reds alike, certain tribes, particularly the 
fierce, revengeful Comanches, felt that each new 
farm created and each new range thrown open 
represented the spoils of a barefaced robbery, and 
that if the white invaders were not severely pun¬ 
ished, the prized hunting-grounds of the red men 
would soon be gone. Thus, in Texas, as in other 
border States, bitter engagements took place be¬ 
tween nomad and settler. While other districts 
fought their battles in an unorganized sense, 
Texas chose to increase her offensive and defen¬ 
sive strength by forming a band of Rangers, 
composed of the hardiest and boldest of her men, 
men who knew no fear, and who could ride a 
horse and shoot a rifle with a skill calculated to 
strike terror to the hearts of all enemies of law 
and order. 

Probably the most famous of the old Rangers 
were the group of rough-riding fighters who 
worked under that redoubtable plainsman and 


90 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Indian fighter, Captain Ben McCulloch. Cap¬ 
tain McCulloch’s name has gone down in Texas 
history beside that of Sam Houston, Bur¬ 
net, Colonel Burleson, and the many other gal¬ 
lant men of the Lone Star State. McCulloch’s 
Texas Rangers were all plainsmen and Indian 
fighters, and in the warfare with the Comanches 
they performed valiant service in protecting 
Texas settlements against the raids of the 
enemy. 

Notable among the Indian fights engaged in 
by Captain McCulloch’s men is the one immedi¬ 
ately following the outbreak of the Comanche 
War of 1840. At that time Victoria, Linnville, 
and other settlements were laid waste by the In¬ 
dians, who stole hundreds of horses and stam¬ 
peded hundreds of cattle, plundering and mur¬ 
dering as they went. 

The Comanches had attacked Victoria first. 
Although the settlers had had no warning of 
their coming, they hastily gathered all the 
men of the community and gave battle to the 
redskins. So valiantly did they fight against 
the four hundred or more Comanches that they 
managed to hold off their attackers all that day 
and night. On the second day the Indians con¬ 
trived to drive the defenders from several houses 
on the outskirts of the town, but were unable to 
do more because the rifle-fire, leaping from the 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


91 


doors, loopholes, and windows of the other cab¬ 
ins, was too withering to be withstood by even 
the most daring of the painted warriors. 

At length, after a fierce but unsuccessful on¬ 
slaught, the Indians withdrew, first venting their 
rage by setting fire to every building they had 
gained. Many cattle and horses were gathered 
and driven across the river in advance of the war 
party. Then the savages followed downstream, 
and from concealment looked longingly at the 
little settlement of Linnville, which lay just be¬ 
low them. 

Like the people living in Victoria, the residents 
of Linnville were unprepared for the coming of 
the uprising redskins. Indeed, when the big 
party was seen upon the plains, the population 
thought them a caravan of Mexican traders. 
They were earnestly thinking of riding forth to 
give the strangers a welcome, when the latter 
began to dash forward with the wildest and most 
terrifying of war-whoops. 

The pioneers were astonished beyond measure; 
but they were not frightened into a meek de¬ 
fense and then a surrender, as the Indians had 
hoped. As quick as a flash the call to arms went 
up from many a lusty Texan’s throat, and doors 
were banged shut, and the inmates began to deal 
out a fusillade of shots which made more than 
one reckless brave bite the dust. 


92 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


But it was an unequal fight—so unequal that 
those brave defenders, in far less numbers than 
at Victoria, had absolutely no chance of success. 
In a great body the Indians rushed forth, heed¬ 
less of the fact that numbers of their men were 
going down; the buildings became fuel for flam¬ 
ing arrow and torch, and as their inmates, men, 
women, and children, rushed out to escape suffo¬ 
cation and burns, the tomahawk and knife ruth¬ 
lessly laid them low. 

Fortunate it was for the survivors that a large 
flat-boat was moored in the river nearby. To 
this they escaped, after an exciting run; the an¬ 
chor was hoisted, and they began to float down¬ 
stream with the current, while the red horde on 
the bank ran along opposite, uttering threaten¬ 
ing cries and discharging guns and arrows. As 
they followed, the Comanches eagerly beat the 
shrubbery along the water’s edge in quest of a 
chance canoe. 

Meanwhile, at the first reports of the attack 
upon Victoria, the fiery old plainsman, Captain 
McCulloch, galloped to the scene of trouble 
with his band of twenty-four Texas Rangers. 
They reached Victoria at about the time the Co¬ 
manches were sacking Linnville. When the 
Rangers saw what had happened at Victoria, and 
heard of the raid on the tiny town farther down 
the river, they started post-haste for Linnville. 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


98 


Although they were outnumbered close to 
twenty times, no man among the brave fellows 
hesitated for a single instant in pursuing the 
large band of Indians. Fortunately, however, 
as they rode on, they were reenforced by volun¬ 
teers from Texana, Lavaca, and Quero; for other 
Indian fighters were hearing of the Comanche 
depredations. 

Thus, when the force of whites neared Linn- 
ville it was of quite a formidable size. Sud¬ 
denly they ran into some Comanche scouts, who 
had been sent back by the war party to report 
on the pursuit, of which the savages seemed to 
have become cognizant. Some of these scouts 
were shot down or captured, but several suc¬ 
ceeded in escaping to the main body. The In¬ 
dians, now really alarmed and afraid either to 
attack or stand their ground, took to flight, 
throwing away all encumbrances, and even kill¬ 
ing the slower horses and cattle in their herd of 
plunder. 

The rout had come none too soon to suit the 
little group of refugees aboard the flat-boat. In 
fact, it had come just in the nick of time—just 
as a half-dozen redskins were pulling out of the 
bushes a big war-canoe, preparatory to embark¬ 
ing and attacking them in midstream. How 
thankful they were when an Indian scout ap¬ 
peared with the news of the approach of the 



94 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Rangers, and they saw the band which had fol¬ 
lowed them disappear hastily in the forest! 

What the Rangers and their friends really 
wanted most was not a pursuit of the redskins, 
but a decisive battle with them. Still, since the 
enemy refused to face them, the next best thing 
was to give pursuit, overtake them, force a com¬ 
bat, and teach the rascals a lesson. So the chase 
continued. 

However, the Texans were poorly mounted, 
their horses being fagged, while the Indians had 
fresh ones. Before long, therefore, it looked as 
if the wily old chief would get his warriors away 
without the fight the Rangers wanted so badly. 

About this time Captain McCulloch had an 
idea, which he lost no time in acting upon. He 
knew the Indians would soon have to cross the 
Colorado River, and having an idea where this 
point would be, he and several of his men started 
off toward it by a short-cut, telling the rest of 
the men to go on after the savages and to keep 
up the appearance of an earnest pursuit in order 
to deceive them. 

Captain McCulloch arrived considerably in 
advance of the redskins, and had time to recruit, 
from among the neighboring ranches, a large 
number of cowboys and settlers. When the 
Comanches did appear, they saw that they 
were cornered, and there was nothing else for 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


95 


them to do but prepare to put up the best 
fight they could. They selected a long wooded 
stretch in which to make their stand, and while 
hundreds of them concealed themselves in the 
foliage and behind trunks and logs, a consider¬ 
able number spread out, as skirmishers, for a 
quarter of a mile into the plain on either side of 
the forest. 

By this time the pursuing whites, now under 
the command of General Felix Houston, had 
come into close proximity with the Comanches. 
These Texans dismounted, and sent their horses 
to the rear, as all good cavalrymen do when pre¬ 
paring for battle. Then the men flopped on 
their bellies, and began to snake forward, paus¬ 
ing only to fire their guns whenever their leader 
gave the command. For a while the bullets flew 
thick and fast and the rattle of muskets was sharp 
and vicious. 

But so hot and accurate was the response of 
the Indians that the Texans soon saw an open 
charge right away was out of the question. 
They continued a slow advance along the 
ground, taking advantage of every form of con¬ 
cealment, such as grass hummocks, declivities, 
cactus clumps, and boulders. 

This was too much like their own cunning 
style of warfare to suit the Indians. It would 
have pleased them much more had the whites 


96 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


made a forward rush on foot, as large bodies of 
whites usually did, for then the redskins could 
have picked them off with little danger to them¬ 
selves. As it was, the Comanches determined 
to adopt some expedient to get the Rangers to 
show themselves. So they sent a score of their 
most daring horsemen out to the edge of the 
woods. Here the warriors cavorted up and 
down in the clearing, wheeling, dashing, and 
wheeling again, uttering taunting cries, and try¬ 
ing in every conceivable way to tempt the Rang¬ 
ers into making a sudden break after them. 
But, to the chagrin of the Indians, they soon 
found that their gayly-bedecked ponies and glar¬ 
ingly-painted selves were very conspicuous tar¬ 
gets for the whites, and one after another of the 
ridiculing braves went tumbling to the ground, 
never to rise again, when those unerring rifles of 
the Rangers spoke. Presently, in a panic, the 
Indians who were left dashed wildly into the 
woods, carrying their dead and wounded with 
them. 

Now the Rangers tried a little trick of their 
own. With a detachment of men, Colonel Bur¬ 
leson worked around to the right flank of the 
Comanches, while at the same time McCulloch 
and his newly-recruited cowboys began to ap¬ 
pear on the Indians’ left. Immediately a cross¬ 
fire from three directions was hurled into the 


THE TEXAS RANGER 97 

woods, and the Indian skirmishers began scut¬ 
tling for cover. 

Hotter and hotter came the fire of the various 
bodies of Rangers. The Comanches stood it 
as long as they could, then, with their ponies, be¬ 
gan a mad stampede from cover, scattering 
widely, and throwing away everything which 
tended to impede their progress. After them, 
pell-mell, came the Rangers. Captain McCul¬ 
loch and his men started ahead in the chase, and 
for fifteen miles they kept up a running battle 
with the rear-guard of the enemy, killing and 
wounding many, until finally the Indians got 
into the wilder sections of the country, and scat¬ 
tered to such an extent that following them ef¬ 
fectively was out of the question. Rut behind 
them they left so many of their finest warriors 
that the spirit of the entire band was utterly 
crushed, and the Rangers had broken up what 
promised to be one of the bloodiest of the many 
Comanche wars in Texas. 

A little later, during the war against Mexico, 
the Texas Rangers were among the most effi¬ 
cient scouts, and every man of them did valorous 
duty for his State, as did also the Rangers who 
went through the trying times of the Civil War, 
years afterward. But when the weary soldiers 
of the North and South laid down their arms, it 
was found that in making the necessary read- 


98 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


justment of affairs in Texas a Ranger force was 
needed not only to guard the frontier and inter¬ 
national boundaries, but to police the State as 
well. And the organization that came into be¬ 
ing about that time may be said to have been 
really the beginning of the splendid, efficient 
force of Texas Rangers as we know it to-day. 

In fact, it was in 1873 that the first company of 
Texas Rangers of the modern school was or¬ 
ganized. As in former days, the men at the 
head of the organization were picturesque indi¬ 
viduals who quickly became famous in the Lone 
Star State, but they operated with more preci¬ 
sion and military singleness of purpose than 
had the old commanders. There was Captain 
“Billy” Hughes, for instance,—Captain Billy, 
who was wont to assure you “I’m nacherally 
peaceful an’ law-abidin’, hut I alius carry my 
gun.” The truth is, Captain Billy had good 
reason to “alius carry” a gun; for while he had 
thousands of friends in Texas, like all brave and 
fearless men he also had numerous enemies whose 
selfish interests he had sometimes thwarted. 

It is related that Captain Billy was ambushed 
one Sunday morning as he was riding in to 
church. Four rough-looking men waylaid the 
old plainsman, and without any preamble began 
to cut loose at him with their guns in lively 
fashion. As Billy said afterward to friends, “I 


THE TEXAS RANGER 99 

jest hated to desecrate the Sabbath by any sort 
of gun-play myself, but when one of them fel¬ 
lers tickled my forearm with one of his bullets I 
got so mad I thought it was Saturday, an’ I just 
started a little music myself. When I was done, 
all four of ’em was out of workin’ order. Then 
I remembered ag’in as it was the Sabbath; so I 
jest went on an’ took my reg’lar pew in the 
church.” 

This same Captain Bilfy was noted for the 
character of the men he selected to constitute his 
force of Rangers. He did not care particularly 
that the prospective Ranger should have “book 
learnin’,” or that he should be the son of a 
wealthy rancher, or have powerful friends politi¬ 
cally. What he wanted was a man with grit and 
fighting ability, good resourcefulness, and a 
strong degree of loyalty to the State and the 
Rangers. When asked one time how he selected 
his men, his mouth spread into a good-natured 
smile, as he answered laconically: “Why I jest 
look ’em square in the eye; an’ if they look me 
square in the eye, I want ’em; if they don’t look 
me square in the eye, slap-back, I don’t want 
’em. That’s all.” Very simple formula, is it 
not? Yet, the records show that Captain Billy 
never made a mistake in sizing up his man. 

To-day there are four companies of Rangers 
on patrol in the Lone Star State. Every man 



) > ) 


i 


TOO HEROES OF THE WILDS 


of these four companies has been selected with 
strict regard to the requisites Captain Billy of 
long-ago made it a point to demand in his appli¬ 
cants, as well as the modern requisite of a fairly 
good education. Every Ranger is clean-minded 
and upright, cool in time of danger, an enemy to 
everything that savors of crookedness, and very 
careful that his name and the reputation of his 
organization shall not suffer the taint of dishonor 
through any act of his own. Indeed, woe be 
to the Ranger who is lax in these respects, for, 
as large as is the State of Texas, its vast environs 
could never conceal him from the wrath of his 
comrades should he once forget to do his duty. 

Our Ranger of to-day enlists for a period of 
two years, and he remains in constant service un¬ 
til the expiration of his time unless, for special 
reasons, the company is disbanded or mustered 
out, or he, through some fault of his own, or 
physical disability, is removed from the activities 
of the force. Among the reasons justifying dis¬ 
missal are those of abusive language or insubor¬ 
dination to a superior officer, ungentlemanly be¬ 
havior to civilians, theft, drunkenness, profanity 
in public, unnecessary cruelty in making arrests, 
and unwarranted show of authority. 

When he first makes application for enlist¬ 
ment, the Ranger is critically examined by the 
commanding officer, to make sure that he pos- 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


101 


sesses the qualifications already named as requi¬ 
sites, besides which he is given a horse of an un¬ 
ruly kind and closely watched to see how well he 
handles himself upon the fractious steed. Then 
he is handed a rifle, allowed so many shots at a 
distant target, and a record kept of his hits and 
misses. Following this a revolver is given to 
him, and he must fire it with the right as well as 
with the left hand, hitting the bull’s-eye as many 
times as possible. 

If he does satisfactory work in these tests, he 
is accepted, and then asked to provide himself 
with a good horse. But, since almost every big 
boy and man in that country owns one or more 
ponies, this does not bother him in the least; in 
fact, he would rather use his own animal, because 
he knows his own horse’s whims and capabilities. 
The State provides him with another mount, 
should the one he owns be killed or die in service; 
but he must pay for the carbine and pistol they 
give him, although the ammunition is furnished 
free. 

Every day the quartermaster of the company 
issues each Ranger twelve ounces of bacon, or 
twenty-four of beef, as he wishes; twenty ounces 
of flour or corn-meal, two and two-fifths ounces 
of beans or peas, one and three-fifths ounces of 
rice, three and one-fifth ounces of coffee, three 
and one-fifth ounces of sugar, one gill of vinegar 


\ 


102 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


or pickles, two-thirds of an ounce of salt, one 
twenty-fourth of an ounce of pepper, four and 
one-fifth ounces of potatoes, sixteen twenty- 
fifths of an ounce of baking-powder, one-sixth 
of an ounce of candles, and one-third of an 
ounce of soap. These supplies are considered 
sufficient to last the ordinary healthy Ranger, if 
he does not waste anything, a full twenty-four 
hours; but when he is out of reach of the 
quartermaster’s department and the specified ra¬ 
tions are out of the question, he is allowed 
one dollar and fifty cents each day for the 
purchase of his meals wherever he may choose to 
buy them. 

The horses also are well fed, each animal be¬ 
ing allowed each day twelve pounds of corn or 
oats and fourteen pounds of hay, with an extra 
two ounces of salt once each week. 

The Rangers are paid forty dollars a month for 
their services, sergeants receiving fifty dollars, 
and the commanding officer of each troop get¬ 
ting one hundred dollars. This is considered by 
the men to be particularly good pay, for in the 
cattle country men who ride the range seldom re¬ 
ceive as much, with board. 

And it is from the range—from the ranks of 
the bold, adventuresome cowboys—that most 
of the Rangers come. They find patrolling the 
countryside and enforcing the law against bad 




TEXAS RANGERS PATROLLING THE BORDER 




THE TEXAS RANGER 


103 


men to be far more appealing and exciting than 
the spring and fall round-ups with their heavy 
drag of day- and night-work, and also more at¬ 
tractive than the constant range-riding, looking 
for stray cattle and sheep, or putting coal-oil on 
the festering brand-marks to keep the blow-flies 
from infecting the wounds. 

All in all, the Texas Rangers of to-day are 
one of the hardest-fighting, cleanest-principled 
organizations in the country. Dressed in their 
loose, flapping garments; swaying in their 
saddles carelessly and as free as the wind, car¬ 
bines slung aslant shoulder, lariats over saddle- 
horns, they are wonderfully picturesque, seem¬ 
ing to be a part of the rugged, breezy landscape 
itself—even a part of the swift-footed gallop- 
ing ponies they bestride. As they sweep side 
by side, in twos and threes, they talk and jest, 
chuckle and laugh. Only when silence means 
the capture of an enemy are they still. And 
then they are so deadly still that you might be 
close enough to reach through a bush and touch 
one of them, but you could not hear him breathe; 
and his wonderfully trained pony is equally 
noiseless. 

For the last five or six years the Texans have 
had many a skirmish on the international border¬ 
line; they have been called out at all hours to 
break up parties of marauding Mexican bandits, 


104 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


and to listen to the droning whine of bullets as 
they cut close to their ears when these same ma¬ 
rauders retaliated for the Rangers’ interference 
with their destruction of life and property on 
the American side of the Rio Grande. 

It was the Texas Rangers who did so much to 
keep order in the Lone Star State before the 
American forces were sent in to do border patrol 
work in 1916; and during that trying period they 
had any number of red-hot skirmishes with the 
outlaws from Mexico. If it had not been for the 
vigilance of the Rangers, coupled with their 
hard-riding abilities and splendid marksman¬ 
ship, the notorious Villa and his bandits would 
have committed many more depredations than 
they did. As it was, hundreds of sleek Ameri¬ 
can cattle just across the line, and scores of fine 
American plantations, were saved by the timely 
appearance of the Rangers. 

During these troublous times it was a common 
occurrence for messages to be flashed almost 
nightly by telephone or telegraph, from some 
point on the border, asking that the Rangers be 
sent to repel an attacking band of Greasers. 
Then at breakneck speed the nearest company 
of Rangers would go dashing to the scene of tur¬ 
moil, and if the Greasers were foolish enough to 
to stay where they were, it would be only a short 
time before they would feel sorry for it. 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


105 


Whether taken individually or collectively, 
the Rangers have seen more real fighting than 
any constabulary organization in the world, and 
they never fail to acquit themselves with signal 
honor, no matter how great the odds against 
them. For instance, I might tell you the story 
of one recent skirmish, wherein a raid by Mexi¬ 
cans was made on an American ranch called 
the Q-Bar, and wherein two Rangers—Buck- 
Along-Buck Crawford and Fred Payson—were 
caught in the ranch-house with the owner, his 
wife and daughter, and one cattleman, and held 
under siege for hours. Those were long, nerve- 
racking hours of the night never to be forgotten 
by any one of the O-Bar’s inmates. 

Buck-Along-Buck and Fred were ending up a 
long patrol late one afternoon. They were just 
riding across a corner of the O-Bar land, a half- 
mile from the ranch-house, when they suddenly 
found themselves face to face with a mounted 
band of about fifty Mexican outlaws. In¬ 
stantly, but without any show of fear, the Rang¬ 
ers wheeled and started in the direction of the 
ranch-house, for they knew that trouble would be 
brewing very shortly, and they wished to give the 
inmates a timely warning. 

Before Buck-Along-Buck and Fred had gone 
far the Greasers opened fire at them, to which 
the Rangers promptly replied with their heavy 



106 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


revolvers. Then a running engagement was 
kept up toward the house. 

Just as Buck-Along-Buck was pulling up his 
mount in front of the building, a Mexican bullet 
hit his broncho, and the animal stumbled and fell. 
At the same moment Fred remembered that the 
O-Bar ranch was without a telephone, and that 
if all hands were cornered up within its walls 
there would be no chance of getting word to the 
troop. This would never do. In a flash he had 
thought out his own line of action. 

“Take yo’ rifle an' git in the house ’long with 
ol’ man Tagor an’ whoever else is in there,” he 
called to Buck. “I’m goin’ to try to git away 
an’ git word to the Rangers. Here, Buck, take 
my belt,”—unstrapping it and tossing it to his 
comrade. “I reckon yo’-all will need these bul¬ 
lets more’n me before I git back. I’ve got five 
shots in my rifle; I reckon I’ll be all right. Now 
yo’ jest got to spring lively to save your hide, 
ol’ boy!” 

Buck saw that he would indeed have to 
“spring lively,” so without arguing the matter, 
as he would have liked to do under less pressing 
circumstances, he took the belt and broke for the 
ranch-house door. The inmates, aroused by the 
shooting and voices, were armed and watching 
him through the window. Quickly they swung 
open the door, and let him in. He was a wel- 



THE TEXAS RANGER 


107 


come visitor at that crisis, for besides the ranch- 
owner, there was only Tagor who could handle 
a rifle, the women folk having nothing of longer 
range than revolvers. 

No sooner was the door slammed shut and 
barred behind Buck-Along-Buck than the bullets 
of the Greasers began to spat against the heavy 
panels, some of them splintering their way 
through, causing those within to crouch lower. 
Then the outlaws set up a chorus of angry yells, 
calculated to strike terror to the hearts of the in¬ 
mates of the ranch-house; but the latter had no 
thought of giving up as long as they could pull 
a trigger, and they began to send a few well- 
placed shots toward the enemy, firing through 
the windows—shots which found a mark, as at¬ 
tested by the pained cries of a couple of reeling 
Greasers,—and then the whole band moved back 
to a more respectable distance. 

Meantime Fred had touched his spurs against 
the flanks of his pony, had uttered a sharp, low 
command to “Let ’er out now, ol’ Bessie!” and 
was off across the plain, heading away from the 
bandits. He saw several Mexicans detach 
themselves from the main body and start in hard 
pursuit after him, evidently surmising the im¬ 
port of his action and determined to thwart his 
purpose. But Fred had great confidence in his 
ability both to outshoot and outstrip any Mexi- 




108 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


can that might ever come his way, so he rode on 
in no great fear, taking care only to gain fast 
enough on his pursuers to get out of range of 
their frequently-sent bullets, and taking no time 
to send back an answering shot himself, as he 
might have done had he thought it best. Really 
his whole attention was concentrated on reaching 
Pigeon-Foot Ranch, five miles west. At this 
place he expected to find a telephone by means of 
which he would be able to communicate with the 
Captain of A A Company of the Ranger force, 
stationed in a little town twelve miles further 
on. 

The Mexicans clung to his trail, but he was 
manifestly fast outdistancing them. In the gloom 
of early evening he could no longer see them, nor 
they him, except when one party or the other 
topped a rise and was silhouetted against the 
starlit heavens beyond. Their shots, too, had 
ceased, although the still night air brought very 
distinctly to his ears the hoofbeats of their horses 
as probably those of his own animal were 
carried to the ears of his pursuers. 

This gave Fred a thought upon which he was 
quick to act. Swerving his horse off to the right, 
he rode on for a half-mile, purposely making as 
much noise as he could, so as to lead the pursuit 
in the new direction. Then, with a quiet word 
to Bessie, he guided her to the left, and she 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


109 


stepped away with the stealth of a panther stalk¬ 
ing a rancher’s lamb. 

When, at last, Fred had regained the old 
course leading direct to Pigeon-Foot Ranch, he 
paused to listen intently. No sound disturbed 
the night air except those made by nocturnal 
birds and animals and the soft breezes blowing 
through the leaves of a tree overhead. All noises 
of pursuit had vanished. Fred smiled to him¬ 
self with deep satisfaction, and patted the neck 
of his horse. “Good Bessie, we fooled ’em that 
time, I reckon,” he remarked. “They’ve prob’ly 
gone back to the O-Bar long before this. Now, 
ol’ girl, pick up yo’ heels a bit an’ rattle ’em as 
hard as yo’ like in the direction of Pigeon-Foot!” 

A little later Fred flung himself out of the 
saddle before Pigeon-Foot Ranch. In a few 
moments he had explained to the owner, Jim 
Tomkins, the situation at the O-Bar, and then 
called up the Ranger captain on the telephone, 
while Tomkins aroused the rest of his household 
and instructed them to get their rifles out and in 
working condition in case the bandits should hap¬ 
pen to come along that way. 

The captain of the Rangers promised to get 
his troop to O-Bar as fast as their horses could 
carry them. 

“All right,” said Fred, “then I’ll mosey right 
back there an’ be in for the grand jubilee when 


110 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


yo’-all bumps up ag’in’ them Greasers. I don’t 
want to be left out of this. I sure am entitled 
to a whack at ’em myself after all the trouble 
they’ve made me so far!” 

“But you might get there ahead of us,” ob¬ 
jected the captain of the AA Company. “In 
that case those Greasers would soon get away 
with you, Fred.” 

“Waal, I sure ain’t goin’ to stay here, Cap’n,” 
said Fred, very mildly. “So-long! Yo’-all will 
find me where every good Ranger belongs ” 
And he hung up the receiver. 

“Dadbust that fellow!” cried the captain, turn¬ 
ing to a couple of the Rangers in the barracks’ 
office. “Fred says he’s going ‘where every good 
Ranger b’longs.’ That means he’s going to hus¬ 
tle right back, hot-foot, for that trap at the O- 
Bar, where the Greasers have got Tom Butler’s 
family an’ Buck-Along-Buck corked up tighter 
than flies in a bottle. It means, too, boys, that 
I’m dadbusted proud of Fred, and we’ve just 
got to beat him in to the O-Bar somehow in 
order to save his plumb foolish neck for him! 
Grab your guns and get a-straddle!” 

Fred made fast time back to the O-Bar ranch 
—faster time, in fact, than he had made coming 
away from it; for all the way he was in an agony 
of apprehension lest the Mexicans already had 
succeeded in burning the house, killing its de- 



THE TEXAS RANGER 


111 


fenders, and running off all the livestock. Poor 
Bessie was astonished and hurt at the way the 
frantic Fred put the spurs into her. How she 
did leg it! 

About three-quarters of a mile from the ranch, 
he began to hear the pop-pop-popping of rifle 
fire. The shots came so close together that Fred 
was sure his friend Buck-Along-Buck was 
having a mighty serious time of it. 

As he drew closer he could see the flashes of the 
guns in the darkness—jets of flame leaping from 
the muzzles of the Mexicans’ rifles out there in 
the open, as well as other jets of flame against 
the front of the ranch-house, where the defenders 
were making stern reply. 

Fred now dismounted, and picketed his horse 
behind a big cactus plant. Then he unstrapped 
his spurs, putting them in his saddle-bags, so that 
their jingle might not betray him. As carefully 
and skillfully as an Indian scout, Fred next be¬ 
gan a stealthy advance, taking advantage of 
every cactus clump and protuberance of the 
ground which he encountered, and scuttling 
across the open stretches with his body almost as 
horizontal as an animal’s. 

After a little he reached a point from whence 
he could indistinctly make out the forms of the 
Mexicans besieging the house. He saw that 
they were well scattered, some lying prone on the 


112 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ground and firing with deliberation from an el¬ 
bow rest, while others circled about on their 
horses, yelling like as many Indians and shoot¬ 
ing with reckless abandon. 

Through this cordon of the enemy, Fred had 
made up his mind he must make his way. Once 
in the house, where he felt the rancher and the 
rest by this time must be tired almost to the point 
of collapse, if indeed their ammunition was not 
on the verge of exhaustion, he knew that he 
could do a lot toward bolstering up their cour¬ 
age just by telling them that the Rangers were 
then on the way to help them. Besides, his own 
prowess with the rifle would add materially to the 
fighting strength of the penned up men and 
women. 

Therefore, Fred now resorted to the finest 
kind of stalking work. He dropped flat upon 
his belly, and wormed his way along the rough 
ground much like a huge snake, occasionally 
stopping to raise his head slightly for a better 
look, and sometimes lying as motionless as a bolt 
of timber when he thought attention might be 
directed his way. Once a mounted bandit 
almost rode over him, his horse’s hoofs just graz¬ 
ing the cactus leaves back of which the Ranger 
lay. At another time another Greaser rode up 
from behind so suddenly that Fred thought sure 
he was discovered, and was about to fire at the 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


113 


fellow, when the Mexican was called back by 
his leader. 

Closer and closer Fred came to the ranch- 
house, which stood out clearly in the bright 
moonlight. The Mexicans were becoming 
more scattered in front of him, for the reason 
that out here they were very much exposed and 
within easy range of those within the building. 

Fred’s anxiety now was not so much from 
a sense of danger from the enemy as from his 
own friends, for he was afraid that the keen eyes 
of the ranch’s defenders might detect him and 
take him for a Mexican before he could disclose 
his identity, which, to say the least, would mean 
a decidedly uncomfortable time for him dodging 
their well-aimed bullets. 

Unexpectedly, however, his attention was 
directed elsewhere. All at once he became con¬ 
scious of a very bright, weird light spreading out 
from behind. It needed only a quick backward 
look to tell him that, after rounding up all the 
cattle and horses they could find, and driving 
them off toward the river, the Greasers had set 
fire to the ranch outbuildings. Without a doubt 
their next objective for the torch of incendia¬ 
rism would be the ranch-house itself. Fred shud¬ 
dered. Well he knew the fate of the defense¬ 
less ones within when that should take place. 
Driven out by the flames, they would be shot 


114 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


down, one by one, by the gloating, cruel bandits; 
and then it would be a miracle if he were not dis¬ 
covered himself in the bright light which would 
be cast over the surroundings by the burning 
house. 

Indeed, Fred saw that in a few minutes he 
stood a good chance of being seen, as it was. 
Every instant the shadows behind were thin- 
ing because of the growing conflagration of the 
outbuildings, and it could be only a brief while 
before everything in his vicinity would be lit 
up as plainly almost as by day. 

“Waal,” soliloquized Fred in his slow drawl, 
“sence I see I gotta be a target for either a 
Greaser’s gun or a white man’s, I sure guess as 
how I prefer to git hit with a friend’s bullet; 
so here goes for the house!” 

Without further hesitation he arose to his 
feet, and, crouching low, made a bee-line sprint 
toward the building. At the same time he let 
out a shrill series of w T histles by putting his fin¬ 
gers in his mouth—the call of a “bob-white” sev¬ 
eral times repeated. If only Buck-Along-Buck 
would hear that he would know it, for it was a 
signal by which either one of them could dis¬ 
close his identity to the other. 

Buck-Along-Buck, inside the ranch-house, did 
hear it. Moreover, through the window he saw 
the crouching form of his beloved comrade bowl- 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


115 


ing along toward the house, flapping felt hat 
in one hand and pistol in the other, carbine bob¬ 
bing from its strap over his shoulder. Instantly 
Buck stuck his own fingers in his mouth and sent 
forth an answering whistle. Then he dashed to 
the door, with a word to Tom Butler to stand by 
the window and let him know just when Fred 
reached the outside of the house so that he could 
unbar the entrance for him. 

In the meanwhile Fred was in a regular stew 
of trouble. The moment he had started to run he 
had been discovered by the Mexicans, and his 
whistled signal only angered them the more. 
Angry cries went up from his rear, most of them 
curses in Spanish and warnings to comrades in 
different parts of the field. Then the spiteful 
crack of rifles began to shatter the night, while 
a score of Greasers dashed forward on their 
mounts after the fleeing Ranger. 

Luckily for Fred he had obtained a pretty 
good start, and the ranch-house was near. 
Luckily, too, the bandits were in such a state 
of impotent rage that their aim was wretched, 
and all their bullets did was to screech past the 
runner’s head or spurt up the dirt on each side of 
him. 

In the lead came two Greasers better mounted 
than the rest. As these men began to close up 
on the fleeing Ranger they withheld their fire 


116 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


for a surer shot, seeming to be confident they 
would “get” him. Now they were quite close, 
and the foremost raised his heavy revolver, aim¬ 
ing at Fred’s head. But before he could press 
the trigger, Buck-Along-Buck, peeping out of 
the partially open door of the house, with steady 
eye ranging along his carbine barrel, got in the 
first word. A shot rang out—Buck’s. The 
Mexican gave a shriek, dropped his leveled 
revolver, and pitched headlong out of his saddle. 

Fred knew instinctively what had happened 
without looking around—knew that somebody in 
the ranch-house had dropped one of the leading 
Greasers just in the nick of time. He dashed 
on, eyes straight ahead, legs pounding over the 
turf with every ounce of vigor they had left in 
them. As he ran, he zig-zagged slightly from 
side to side, to disconcert the aim of the second 
bandit should he be aiming at him. 

This second Greaser was really a sticker. He 
kept right on, despite the fate of his comrade, 
and was overhauling the flying man on foot with 
every bound of his pony. His pistol was cocked, 
and half-raised, as he watched for a favorable 
opportunity to get in a shot at the erratic-going 
Ranger. Twice he did shoot, but each time 
Fred’s body swung off just in the nick of time 
to avoid the lead. And now for a third time the 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


117 


Greaser slowly raised his revolver. Twisting 
his head slightly, Fred saw the movement. He 
was then twenty-five yards from the ranch-house, 
and knew that the time had come for him to do 
something else than run and dodge in a blind sort 
of way. 

There was just one sensible thing left for him 
to do. That was to stop short, wheel about and 
try to shoot down his pursuer before the Mexi¬ 
can could fire. So Fred did his best to carry 
out that plan. With a suddenness which took 
the bandit completely unawares, the Ranger 
whirled in his tracks, threw up his pistol, and 
fired. The movement seemed to be continuous; 
not a fraction of a second was lost between opera¬ 
tions. It was the salvation of Fred; before the 
Greaser could pull trigger, Fred's bullet pierced 
his heart, and he tumbled from his horse with¬ 
out even an articulation. 

Scarcely pausing, Fred turned again and con¬ 
tinued his wild dash for the house, while bullets 
from the other pursuers zip-zipped around him 
on all sides. In a moment or two he had safely 
reached the walls, and then the heavy door swung 
open far enough to admit him, then closed with a 
bang and was once more securely barred by 
Buck-Along-Buck. The two Rangers wrung 
one another’s hands warmly; in one or two short 


118 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


sentences Fred told of his success in telephoning 
the Ranger troop from Pigeon-Foot Ranch, and 
then all hands sprang to the windows, guns in 
hand, to resume watch of the enemy outside. 

The Mexicans were angrier than ever, now 
that Fred had slipped through their hands once 
more and had laid out a couple of their best men 
in doing it. Presently they made a fierce charge 
upon the house, bent upon taking it by sheer 
force of numbers; but so accurate and deadly 
was the aim of the defenders, now vastly heart¬ 
ened as well as materially strengthened by the 
coming of Fred, that pretty soon the enemy was 
forced to retreat, carrying several dead and 
wounded with them. 

This was the last assault they made, for it hap¬ 
pened that before this the oncoming troop of 
Rangers, galloping along the valley, had seen the 
glare in the sky occasioned by the burning ranch 
buildings, and had quickened their pace to such 
an extent that they now suddenly swooped down 
upon the Greasers with little or no warning. 

Consternation seized the Mexicans. They 
had no relish to stand and give battle to such a 
hard-fighting force as this troop of Texan 
Rangers, so they scattered in every direction, 
glad enough to escape with their lives, although 
a few more of their number lost theirs before the 
doughty plainsmen were through with the chase. 


THE TEXAS RANGER 


119 


This story might be multiplied many times 
over; and will be again should occasion arise. 

These chaps of the wilderness-patrol are just 
plain every-day Texans who can shoot and ride 
with the best men in the world. They are en¬ 
dowed by nature with the grit and courage of a 
bull-dog and the fighting qualities of a grizzly 
bear. They are used to the whine of bullets 
around their ears, to all forms of violence and 
bloodshed; not once will they go a step out of 
their way to avoid such things if Law and Jus¬ 
tice are in jeopardy. Texas is mighty proud of 
her Rangers, proud of their history, proud of 
their bullet-scars, proud of their international 
reputation as clean-souled fellows who hate op¬ 
pression and corruption, cruelty and cowardice. 
She knows that as long as she has them society 
will be troubled by fewer cattle-thieves, fewer 
train-robbers, fewer whiskey-runners, fewer 
crooks, fewer lawless Greasers. 


IV 


THE COWBOY 

S UNSET; then dusk; and then the great 
herd of cattle, on the long trail from 
the Double-Dot Banch to the nearest 
shipping point, come to a stop and are bedded 
down on the hillside for the night. 

The sky is as clear as a bell. One by one the 
stars peep out, growing brighter and brighter as 
the minutes pass. How luminously large they 
shine in the pure air of the plains! You can 
almost count their “points.” The ten thousand 
cattle huddle, a vast sea of heaving brown backs 
and whitish-gray horns, in an uneasy sort of 
manner quite unlike their usual deportment at 
turning-in time. 

It needs only an old plainsman, like most of 
these cowboys, to tell what is the portent of this 
combination of brilliant, stagnant heavens and 
restless sullenness of the animal kingdom. They 
alone would not have been deceived by this fore¬ 
boding quiet, by this ominous hush of their little 

universe; they alone would have taken note, pres- 

120 


THE COWBOY 


121 


ently, of the dark, thin line, like a smear of pen¬ 
cil smut, along the horizon. They, to a man, 
could have told you that a storm was brooding; 
that that storm was probably going to be a bad 
one; that it would strike in all likelihood before 
day dawned. 

But these hardy fellows do not fear, to the 
point of showing it, even the worst of storms. 
The cook whistles as steadily and discordantly 
as ever, as he washes his dishes in the dusk. Nor 
does he cease to whistle until a stray gust of air 
pokes its nose under the ashes of his fire-pit and 
mischievously whisks a handful of the dust into 
his mouth and eyes. Then, sputtering and 
swearing a perfect blue streak in the easy, un- 
malicious manner of cowboys who have learned 
to cuss for the mere rompishness of it, “cookie” 
winds up by joining in the laugh of the others at 
his expense. A little later, he pulls down tightly 
the sheet of the chuck-wagon, with a defiant look 
at the gathering clouds, and prepares to make 
his own bed inside among his greasy pots and 
skillets. 

And the night-herder turns up his collar, as 
he goes on watch with the horse-herd. The 
drive-boss sits with his knees girdled by his husky 
big arms, his brow knit, his keen gray eyes now 
aslant at a speaking comrade, now sneaking a 
speculative look at the sky, while a pipe glows 


122 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


dully in the darkening night. The men are 
tired—tired to the ragged edge, after an unusu¬ 
ally hard day’s drive. One by one they unroll 
their blankets, and form themselves into huge 
cocoons, each with his head in the hollow of his 
saddle and his hat pulled down over his face. 

“Sawbuck” McCumber, the drive-boss, does 
not go to sleep just yet. He continues to puff 
slowly at his pipe, while he casts quick glances 
here and there—with furtive ones at the gather¬ 
ing storm. He is quick to note the rise of the 
wind by the increasing frequency and force with 
which it strikes his face and wafts back the thin 
columns of smoke he ejects from between his 
lips. Presently he puts an extra man on the 
night-watch; this fellow departs into the dark, 
singing softly to himself. 

“Cuss Bill’s muleskin hide, I believe he’d sing 
all the way into a lake of fire and brimstone,” 
mutters Sawbuck lovingly. Then he emits an¬ 
other wreath of smoke, spits in the fire, blinks 
his eyes a few times, nods drowsily, starts sud¬ 
denly. Sitting bolt upright, he takes another 
uneasy look skyward. He notes a play of light¬ 
ning on the rising bank of clouds in the south¬ 
west. A heavier pall of darkness seems to hover 
over the camp of the cowboys directly after that 
livid streak—yes, a heavier pall of silence, too. 
A few minutes pass, and then a longer zig-zag- 






© Underwood and Underwood 


THE NIGHT HERDER 






THE COWBOY 


123 


ging streak splits the blackness far away. The 
flare sends a momentary flood of ghastly light 
over the camp scene. 

Sawbuck’s gaze is held by the face of the Kid, 
whose fair features and slender form are only a 
few feet away. Somehow, with the livid light 
of the storm-herald playing across his pink-and- 
white features, the Kid looks more boyish, more 
pitifully fragile for this sort of rough work than 
ever. Self-accusation swells hard in Sawbuck’s 
breast as a dungeon-like darkness ensues once 
more, blotting out the Kid and everything else 
save the fire. 

“Well, I ain’t to blame,” soliloquizes Saw- 
buck in almost a snarl. “Hell take the little 
shaver! That day he come to the Double-Dot 
two months ago, an orphant an’ not a friend in 
the world, an’ fairly beggin’ to be a cowboy, 
didn’t I try my darnedest—an’ all the rest of the 
boys, too—to discourage him? Course he 
s’prised us the way he took to ridin’ a pony an’ 
handlin’ a rope an’ all that; an’ he’s showed him¬ 
self a highkaflutin’ gritty little cuss, too; but 
somehow it seemed he wasn’t strong enough fer 
this here long drive when it come time to go, an’ 
I jes’ nacherally tried to head him off—but 
here’s the little devil along with us. Gosh-all- 
Friday! I got a hunch o’ somethin’ happenin’ 
round these parts, somehow. Wonder what’s in 



124 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


the air? I never been so skeery of a growin’ 
storm afore.” 

Sawbuck sits for some time longer. Now he 
puffs; now he uneasily watches the almost steady 
play of lightning; once or twice, in the flare, he 
glances at the sleeping face of the Kid, the 
youngest cowboy in the outfit—the Kid whose 
happy disposition has endeared him to every one 
of these rough-and-ready chaps of the plains. 

Menacing masses of black cloud spread their 
storm tentacles wider and wider, swallowing up 
the blue of the sky and obliterating the stars one 
by one. In half an hour Sawbuck, who dare not 
go to sleep, is listening to the low, incessant mut¬ 
ter of thunder. In half an hour more he is 
threading his way among the human cocoons, un¬ 
ceremoniously kicking this one and that one with 
the toe of his boot and calling out: 

4 ‘Unkink yer eyes, boys! Git up! There’s 
goin’ to be a reg’lar howler of a storm.” 

Some rise with astonishing quickness and 
alacrity. They are the old hands. Others 
grunt and growl, half-asleep, until Sawbuck’s 
leather alarm-clock strikes with new impetus, 
and then they come up very promptly, indeed. 
They are the newer hands. 

Rubbing their eyes, the cowpunchers notice 
that the bank of cloud is now reaching well over 
them. They see the heavens torn with livid 


THE COWBOY 


125 


streaks of lightning, and they hear the intermit¬ 
tent roar of the fast-approaching thunder. The 
wind begins to sob in the long grass at their feet. 
Little particles of dust go whirling by. The 
head of “cookie” pokes out from the rear of the 
chuck-wagon. 

“What the tarnation’s up?” bawls “cookie.” 

“Old King Storm is up, but he’ll soon be 
down, cookie,” yells back a cowboy. 

“Yo’ better rope yo’ old pots an’ pans, cookie, 
an’ picket ’em to a wagon wheel er they’ll soon 
be takin’ the air-mail express,” cheerfully adds 
another fellow, at which there is a jolly laugh all 
along the line, even from “cookie” himself. 

From out of the darkness comes the faint, 
singing voice of the night-herder as he makes his 
lonely rounds:— 

O it’s nice to be a cowboy, 

A cow-wow-wow-boy, 

On the cattle trail; 

All yo’ got to do 

Is work till yo’re through; 

O it’s nice to be a cowboy, 

A cow r -w 7 ow-wow-boy, 

On the cattle trail! 

“Saddles up, boys!” cries Sawbuck. “There’s 
shore goin’ to be a rip-roarin’, slambustin’ old 
storm a-poppin’ here afore long. If the cattle 


126 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ever git right skeered, us dubs is goin’ to more’n 
have our hands full. Git me? I said it!” 

“That’s right—rar’ an’ pitch, yo’ wall-eyed old 
rockin’-hoss!” admonishes another voice, as the 
owner of it, wrapped in his yellow slicker, gets 
into his saddle and turns toward the herd. Saw- 
buck cast a suspicious glance his way, but seeing 
the animal actually on his hind legs, seems satis¬ 
fied that he is not the butt of a joke. 

“So-long, cookie!” calls out another cowboy. 
“Don’t fergit to picket yore pots an’ pans, will 
yo’? We’ll be back by breakfas’ time.” 

About the herd, in a great circle, they take up 
their positions, falling into the work with that 
sensible philosophy of the cowboy which teaches 
him it is best to take things as they come and in 
the most cheerful manner. As they ride their 
beats up and down the line along the edge of the 
huddled herd, the thunder is booming loudly, 
and the rain begins to fall in heavy, irregular 
drops. It is the signal for the cowboys to begin 
a low, soothing song, which instantly has a rest¬ 
ful effect upon the uneasy cattle. 

Then suddenly, with a gusty rush, the winds 
break their leash entirely. As they sweep over 
the camp with a shrieking howl, the grasses are 
bent out almost flat, the cowpunchers cram their 
wide-brimmed hats tight down over their crowns, 
and their ponies bend their noses to the fierce 


THE COWBOY 


127 


rush or effect a willingness to face in another 
direction. With the bowling wind, a solid, 
blinding wall of rain hits the locality. In its 
swirling mists are hidden the outlines of both 
men and animals. The thunder seems to have 
been restraining itself, too; for now it bursts 
forth with a cannonading absolutely deafen¬ 
ing. 

The cattle are pushing and jostling one an¬ 
other with terror, a terror which brings many a 
horn scraping against another, or against a more 
tender portion of the anatomy of a neighboring 
beast, and sundry pained and frightened bellow- 
ings are the result. Like a restless sea the 
brown backs heave and churn, while the water 
pours off them as it might off an eavetroughless 
roof. The animals hear the singing of the cow¬ 
boys, which, rising in volume with the tumult of 
the storm, exerts a tremendously pacifying effect 
upon their staggered nerves. 

Never did fond mother or father try harder to 
quiet restless babies by the magic of vocal har¬ 
mony. Hoarse of throat, but triumphant, these 
cowboys of the Double-Dot Ranch soon have the 
pleasure of seeing the passing of the cloud-burst. 
Except for the lightning and the wind, the storm 
has gone; their herd is intact. 

But there is still enough to worry about—es¬ 
pecially when the sky takes on a queer, coppery 


128 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


color, as if from some invisible source it is being 
lighted up with ill-boding, gigantic kerosene 
lamps. Now objects may be faintly seen, even 
recognized on the earth if not too far away. 
What a strange sheen is over everything! How 
death-like and sallow the ruddy features of the 
cowboys stand out! How grotesque their horses 
look, tinted with this film of mysterious sulphur¬ 
like light! And the cattle—the huge herd— 
what a distorted, twisting, writhing expanse of 
infernal color they present! 

Valiantly the cowboys work along the line, 
dashing here and dashing there, with yodeling 
call and rollicking refrain, in their mad endeav¬ 
ors to keep the herd in a compact mass and pre¬ 
vent a breaking away of the leaders. Sounds 
of a confused sort come from among the cattle, 
grumblings and mutterings, despite all this. 

The rain is nearly past, but the whole air is 
alive with electricity. The dark velvet vault 
above is threaded by creeping veins and crooking 
fingers of sickly light whose very silence is dread¬ 
fully foreboding. Along the horn tips of the 
cattle the whitish-blue flames play in a weird and 
fantastic manner. You might easily compare 
them to the fires of St. Elmo, frolicking upon 
the spars of a ship caught in a storm at sea. 

The men still hold the line; but at what a ter¬ 
rific outlay of muscular effort, horsemanship, 



THE COWBOY 


129 


tact, and throat! All of them are hoarse from 
shouting and singing—all perspiring copiously 
from the exertion they are making to cover as 
much ground as possible and prevent that 
dreaded catastrophe of the cattle trail—a stam¬ 
pede. 

It is an exciting, a thrilling period—one 
fraught with an almost intolerable suspense and 
the greatest of personal danger. But to the 
cowboys it is the acid test of their fitness for their 
job. To a man they recognize in the trying 
situation a ringing challenge to arms. And 
they accept that challenge, on the backs of their 
wiry little cow-ponies, which thread their way 
in and out of the surging masses of hide, horn 
and hoof with wonderful dexterity. The ponies, 
indeed, seem to realize with their riders that it 
is “up to them.” 

As for the cattle, they are clattering and shuf¬ 
fling about in a way not pleasant to hear. Their 
unrest seems to grow rather than to diminish 
as the moments pass, although the heroic efforts 
of the cowboys keep them from starting the con¬ 
certed rush they appear about to indulge in from 
time to time. Indeed, now and again a start is 
made by some overwrought animal; but in eveiy 
instance there is a plainsman there so quickly 
that the cow is turned back before it gets well 
under way. 



130 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


The herd is shifting around a little, edging a 
trifle down-wind. This brings it nearer to the 
camp, nearer also to the wagon of the cook, which 
stands with its white cover broken loose at one 
end and flapping in the wind with the crack of a 
pistol. A moment later, the last restraining rope 
parts under the violent whipping up and down 
of the canvas; then, with a hollow groan almost 
human the huge sheet covering “cookie’s” choice 
utensils, goes sailing gaily off across the prairie. 

No studied effort of evil could be of more 
disastrous result! The herd, keyed up to the 
highest pitch of nervousness, and only held in 
by the greatest efforts of the cowboys, need only 
this devil’s device to set them off. As the wagon 
cover comes billowing toward them, white and 
strange, out of the gloom, like some great spec¬ 
tre of ghostland, the cattle give one startled 
look, then begin to bellow and surge wildly in 
the opposite direction. The animals in front 
cannot stop should they desire. They are 
carried along by the maddened creatures behind 
as though they are straws, and it seems only a 
moment or two before the whole herd is moving 
in a panicky mass. The stampede is now fairly 
started. 

“Gosh-all-Friday!” bursts out Sawbuck, the 
drive-boss. For just one fleeting second he 
turns white about the lips; his heart quakes. 


THE COWBOY 


131 


Then he gets the plainsman’s grip on himself; 
his lips tighten with a do-or-die expression; he 
shouts orders to his men; he puts spurs to his 
horse and gallops madly for the head of the surg¬ 
ing herd, bent upon placing himself before the 
advancing mass of panic-stricken creatures be¬ 
fore they are entirely beyond all bounds of re¬ 
straint. 

Picture to yourself the dull roar made by the 
rushing, clumsy hoofs of close to ten thousand 
cattle. Impressive enough in the broad light of 
day, what a terrifying thrill is the sound of their 
terrorized passage under the mantle of the 
mystic darkness! The mad thunder of hoofs 
can be distinguished over other confusions of 
noises. The crash of hollow horn meeting hol¬ 
low horn reaches your ear as the dumb beasts 
struggle to head out of the suffocating press be¬ 
hind them and on all sides. Wild, wild is this 
chase to-night; and far will be its ending. The 
livid flare of lightning will illuminate many a 
tragedy in that mass of flying brutes, as the weak 
is trampled upon by the strong, as the luckless 
stumbles and becomes a bleeding mat of flesh, 
hide, and bone for the frantic passage of those 
coming from the rear. And woe be to the man 
who gets caught in that seething vortex of fren¬ 
zied animaldom! 

Ride, Sawbuck! Ride, Kid! Ride, Sliver 


132 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


and Bill, and Texy, and Jim! Ride—all of you 
ride! Now if ever you must show your mettle! 
Into the roar and rattle of it, away you go for 
the head of the herd! Press, spur, crowd your 
little ponies to the limit of their endurance! 
Once there, yell your heads off; shoot close to 
Iheir faces; ride into them, over them. Frighten 
them back somehow , regardless of your own 
safety. Trust to your pony. He knows that a 
stumble on his part will mean death to you and 
him both. The ground is rough, but there must 
be no misstep, no faltering— 

Ah, but there is! In the gloom some luck¬ 
less cowboy’s pony stumbles—goes down. 
There is a cry, smothered. But all that is half a 
mile back. The herd sweeps on, likewise the 
cowboys. There is no such thing as quitting. 

Into the thick of the leaders of the herd some 
of the men crowd in from the flanks, meeting 
there the cowpunchers who were swept away in 
the first mad rush of the cattle. Now they can¬ 
not escape from this position, nor do they seek 
to do so; they ride on with the stampede. Flat 
of ear, necks straight out, bounding from side to 
side with wonderful agility, to escape the jos¬ 
tling of cow and steer, the hardy little ponies of 
the riders slowly work their way forward. 
Through the dull thud of countless striking hoofs 
comes the rasping pant of the cattle, intermixed 



THE COWBOY 


133 


with the excited snort or neigh of a mustang 
carrying his reckless master. A faint shout is 
heard at times, or the “ Whoa-o-o-opee!” of a 
voice calling to the cattle in an attempt at sooth¬ 
ing them. And now and then, as riders come 
near each other, a swift interchange of brief 
words will be wafted across, shouted at the top of 
the voice, so that the message will not be drowned 
by the reigning tumult of sounds. Revolvers 
bark savagely; spurts of fire split the darkness, 
as some daring fellow heads across the front of 
the surging mass and tries to frighten the herd 
into swinging from its course. 

The broken country near the bluffs of the 
river is at hand, betokened by rougher riding as 
well as by a sharper note in the thundering noise 
of hoof. Pell-mell, down into gully and ravine, 
go cattle, go men, go horses. A little later they 
struggle up the opposite slope, slower of motion 
but lacking not one bit of dogged determination. 
Many an animal stumbles and goes headlong to 
its knees in the dark, some never to rise again; 
but the loss is not noticed or deplored. With 
the dumb brutes it is each and every one for him¬ 
self. The terrible grip of an unreasoning ter¬ 
ror is upon them, and every additional yard of 
the flight seems only to add to the frenzy. 
Every bush, every tree, every boulder, every 
fallen cow or steer acts as a deterrent to the liv- 


134 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


mg current; it is avoided by those who can avoid 
it; others buffet and abrade it, and are buffeted 
and abraded by it in turn, until it is worn down 
into a shapeless and non-resisting fragment, if 
there is any weardown to it. 

Suddenly, without warning, the whole front of 
the herd plunges down out of view. Taking no 
count of precaution in that mad race which calls 
for haste and more haste, the leaders have come 
to the high cut-bank of the river, and in the 
twinkling of an eye find themselves pawing the 
air instead of the flinty ground of the hill coun¬ 
try. A half-dozen cowboys, bold spirits in the 
forefront, are carried over with the animals, their 
ponies leaping with the cattle and finding the 
same vacancy to tread as they shoot swiftly 
downward. 

It is a good eighteen feet to the bottom. 
Dextrously the ponies land upright in the deep 
channel of the river thirty feet below, their riders 
sticking to their backs like burrs to a woolen gar¬ 
ment. All around the cowboys spray is thrown 
high in the air, and the water is in a violent com¬ 
motion from the falls of other cattle which have 
followed the first. The men are in momentary 
alarm, as splashes are heard on the left and right 
of them, and behind, that some of the great 
brutes will come down upon them instead of 
directly in the river, and of course that will finish 


THE COWBOY 


135 


them for keeps. But, by some miracle, every 
cowpuncher manages to escape this peril by 
swimming his pony out into mid-stream as fast 
as he can make the animal go. 

All around and about the cowboys the river 
is full of struggling, frantic creatures, each and 
every one swimming for its life—swimming aim¬ 
lessly and blindly in the dark, bumping into one 
another, beating down each other with climbing 
forelegs, in some cases locking horns when ill 
turnings favor a meeting en masse . 

In the meantime, up above, the remaining cat¬ 
tle of the immense herd are in a ferment of new 
fright and disorder. Those close to the heels of 
those which have gone over have come to a terri¬ 
fied pause on the very brink of the bluff and are 
fighting hard to keep themselves from being 
pushed over by the growing pressure at their 
rear. Wheeling, heads low, uttering plaintive 
warnings from dry throats and foaming mouths, 
they face their brother animals with bloodshot 
eyes and heaving sides. 

Miraculous were it, could any earthly agency 
stem the tide of that great tidal-wave of terror 
beyond. The forward impulse of the rear an¬ 
imals, too far distant to be seen, communicates 
itself to the brutes just in front; the swelling 
vigor of the push gains momentum with remark¬ 
able speed as it sweeps toward the new vanguard. 



136 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


One by one, they are crowded back upon the 
very brink of the bluff; one by one, their rear 
legs are crowded off; one by one, they go hur¬ 
tling down to the river below, some with broken 
necks or legs, others to join in the motley as¬ 
semblage of swimmers gone before. 

In all this bedlam of sound and orgy of con¬ 
fusion and harrowing tragedy, the other cow¬ 
boys are taking their parts right nobly, as cow- 
punchers always will. Sawbuck and Sliver, and 
Bill and Jim, and a whole lot of others, are do¬ 
ing their level best to break up the herd and 
cause it to split before any more valuable cattle 
are pushed over the drop-off. Risking life and 
limb in a manner almost unbelievable, they 
worm their wiry little mustangs into the narrow 
avenues of the animals until they themselves are 
on the very edge of the bluff. There they make 
an heroic stand, cajoling, singing, yelling, en¬ 
treating, cursing, gesticulating. Once Sawbuck 
is caught between the broad sides of two big 
steers, and his legs squeezed until in desperation 
he rises in the saddle and rides his pony out of 
the pinch like a standing Roman equestrian. 
Then, at the crucial moment, he and his com¬ 
panions begin dashing up and down in short 
spurts along the brink of the bluff, yelling their 
loudest and firing their revolvers close to the 
faces 'of the nearest cattle. Well those intrepid 


THE COWBOY 


137 


chaps know that if this fails the stampede will 
not be broken; that they will be shoved head¬ 
long into the river where some of their friends 
already have gone with scores of cattle. 

It is a ticklish place—a place each one of these 
cowboys has not been accidentally worked into, 
but which he has deliberately chosen simply be¬ 
cause he deems it his duty to be there at this par¬ 
ticular moment. What is to be the result? 

The answer is soon forthcoming. The great 
herd wavers; as the cattle in front start a back¬ 
ward movement, there is a sympathetic response 
which rapidly extends its way far back into the 
compactly massed ranks. Although it is scarcely 
more than a tremor compared to the wild for¬ 
ward impulse of a few moments before, it never¬ 
theless means much, especially when built upon 
by the quick-witted cowboys, who continue to 
yell and fire their guns and dash up and down 
on their ponies. 

Finally the head of the herd swerves; it turns 
gradually more and more. The cowboys are 
still in front, pressing and crowding in, still spur¬ 
ring up to the heads of the nearest panting cat¬ 
tle and endeavoring to turn them by every arti¬ 
fice in their power. Little by little, constantly 
growing in momentum, the movement of the 
herd continues away from the bluff, until pres¬ 
ently the cattle are traversing a circle under the 



188 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


urge of the cordon of cowboys who hem them in, 
riding like mad up and down the line. The coil 
of the animal-spring continues to twist. It 
makes a complete circuit within itself; goes on 
circling, in constantly decreasing lines of travel. 
In other words, the ‘'mill” is begun. Round 
and round go the cattle, crowding closer and 
closer together, gaining calm as the play contin¬ 
ues, until they no longer seek to break away. 
And round and round the mill the cowboys ride, 
replacing harsh calls with soft ones, and finally 
breaking into song, which grows into a sub¬ 
dued chant swelling soothingly on the night 
winds. 

Passed is the panic, the frightful stampede of 
ten thousand beeves. For the first time the cow¬ 
boy has a chance to relax a bit, to pass a few re¬ 
marks to his comrade, or to bite off a hunk of 
plug, or to light his pipe. 

Meanwhile what of the hapless fellows who 
went over the cut-bank with the first hundred 
cattle? The little mustangs leaped with the 
frightened creatures, and all took their chances 
in the swirling waters of the river below because 
there was nothing else to do. It took only a 
few moments to choke the stream at that point 
with struggling, terrorized animals, as I have al¬ 
ready shown, all swimming for their lives, and 
all acting blindly except the cowpunchers and 


THE COWBOY 


139 


their highly-trained steeds. The men kept well 
together for mutual protection. Only in this 
way were they able to make concerted attacks 
upon crowding cattle which threatened to crawl 
upon their ponies and drown them. Little by 
little the cowpunchers swam their mounts clear 
of the dangerous pack, and finally managed to 
drop downstream to an exposed sandbar, upon 
which they took refuge. 

Many dead cattle floated past the bar. As 
the moments passed, the crushed and lifeless 
bodies of others stuck fast in the shallows on the 
current side of the tiny island. Across and up¬ 
stream, under the fatal bluff, lay a heap of other 
mangled and crippled bodies, all in a sickening 
tangle. 

Not until morning can the cowboys begin the 
task of roping and pulling out the bodies. So, 
as soon as they have regained a portion of their 
breath and strength, they urge their ponies into 
the river, and swim alongside of them to the op¬ 
posite bank. Then, mounting, they go in search 
of their friends and the main body of animals. 

You can imagine their joy to find that the 
stampede is a thing of the past; that their com¬ 
rades have adroitly turned the maddened cattle 

into the docilitv of the mill. 

*/ 

“I shore thought I was goin’ down to hell 
when me an’ my pony took that drop over the 


140 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


bank,” says Slim, wiping his wet face with a 
wetter neckerchief. 

“I didn’t; I thought I was sproutin’ wings fer 
an angel,” says Texy, “ ’cause at first I seemed 
to be goin’ up’ards.” 

“Any o’ yo’ seen the Kid?” asks Sawbuck sud¬ 
denly. 

Those in the group look questioningly at one 
another, then each man shakes his head. 

“Hope the boy ain’t laid out,” mutters Saw- 
buck. 

“Hope he ain’t,” they repeat. Then comes 
a heavy silence. 

It is really hard to tell where any missing cow¬ 
boy may be at this time, past midnight, with the 
storm just muttering itself away. Some of the 
cattle may be running yet, and some of the boys 
may be with them—more likely than not. Why, 
it wouldn’t be anything unusual to find that the 
last cowpuncher will pull in his pursuing pony 
and roped beeve twenty miles away! Stray 
cows and steers are likely to be scattered over 
many miles of ground, and it will take days in 
that case to get them together. 

Nothing remains to be done by those at the 
mill except to keep vigilant watch throughout 
the remaining hours of the night; to use every 
artifice they can to hold their portion of the herd 
together. And morning finds the men still on 


THE COWBOY 


141 


the job, their eyes heavy with sleep, their faces 
drawn, their garments sopping wet and covered 
with mud from the wild ride of the stampede. 
During the night several have come in and joined 
them, and to each in turn Sawbuck has put the 
eager question, “Yo’ seen anything o’ the Kid?” 
—only to receive the same startled shake of the 
head. 

With the arrival of day, a detail is made up 
to keep guard of the cattle, while the rest of the 
boys go back to camp to bring on the chuck- 
wagon and pick up any loose cattle which may 
be found. As these cowboys ride away, with 
Sawbuck at their head, they see occasional scat¬ 
tered groups of cattle, which are being turned 
back toward the main body. No one says much, 
for all are tired; and somehow a heavy forebod¬ 
ing throws its shadow across the normal sunshine 
of their spirits. 

As they pass on toward camp—or rather 
toward where camp was—a draggled figure rides 
up from out of a little gully. It is Bill, who has 
been following a cow by himself and now has 
her by the horns. 

“Hello, Bill,” says Sawbuck. “Yo’ seen the 
Kid anywheres about? Don’t yo’ dast say yo’ 
ain’t!” 

“I ain’t—not fer some hours,” says Bill. “He 
was by me when we first got started after the 



142 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


cattle; then he spurred ahead an’ I ain’t seen him 
sence.” 

But as they ride along the torn and trampled 
trail left by the stampeding cattle of the night 
before, all their sharp eyes see the Kid about the 
same time. A dark mass lies on the battered 
ground just ahead. They know to a man what 
it is. Silently, as they approach, they rein in 
their ponies to a measured walk. A set expres¬ 
sion comes to the bronzed faces, while down 
some rough cheeks trickles a tear which has es¬ 
caped restraint. Something strange chokes 
every throat, and as the pressure increases and 
the impulse to say something becomes too great 
to be denied, more than one fellow of the cussing 
type begins to cuss and eulogize the lad in the 
same breath. What a queer way to express 
one’s sorrow! But it is the cowboy’s way many 
a time; the more poignant his grief the more in¬ 
cessant his oaths. 

Heads droop as they draw up before the mo¬ 
tionless object on the ground. The Kid’s face, 
washed white and clean by the rains, lies up¬ 
turned in the bright morning light. It looks 
very beautiful. His long chestnut hair, sodden 
with wet, trails off into the miry earth, of which 
he was so recently a part and to which he has 
now returned. Nearby his pony, with its fore¬ 
legs broken by the rush of the stampede, lifts 


THE COWBOY U3 

its head as high as it can and utters a plaintive 
whinny. 

“Hell! hell! hell!” groans Sawbuck, blinking 
over the boy. “Sliver, don’t let that pore beast 
suffer a minute longer! Yo’ know what to do.” 

Sliver whips out his pistol. Yes, he knows 
what to do! Slowly he raises the weapon’s long 
barrel. “Kid,” he mutters hoarsely, as if excus¬ 
ing himself to the dead boy at his feet, “yo’ won’t 
blame me, will yo’? I reckon it’s better yore 
pore hoss should go with yo’, Kid!” 

Later, the Kid is buried as he would have 
asked had he been left alive long enough to have 
made the request. Around his youthful body 
his blankets are wrapped. His riding boots, 
new only a week ago, are on his feet, with spurs 
unattached. Over his boyish features—smiling 
fearlessly even in death, as they had smiled when 
he went confidently into the turmoil of the 
stampede—is placed his broad-brimmed felt hat, 
which Sawbuck himself bought for him on his 
last birthday. A true soldier of the plains, the 
Kid has dared the risks of his calling, has met 
them like a man. 

No finer class of men than the Western cow¬ 
boys are to be met in the day’s travel. While 
their education may not be of the highest, while 
some of them may not be able to read or write 



144 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


their own name, while their speech may be rough¬ 
shod, they are deeply schooled in the university 
of hard-knocks and red-blooded courage, and 
every veteran among them can show a list of 
credits to his name which would cause an East¬ 
ern college graduate to turn green with envy— 
credits of service done for others, coolness dis¬ 
played in time of duty and peril, sacrifice en¬ 
dured, kindness shown the needy, and many an¬ 
other virtue common to the breed. But they 
are only what are expected of him. 

Stampedes, blizzards, floods, enraged steers, 
mosquitoes, intense heat, fearful cold,—any one 
of a thousand perils surrounding his work in 
wild country, are the cowboy’s daily portion. 
Bravery and daring grow to be a matter of 
course, so much so that no particular thought is 
given to it by his fellows when a man performs 
some signal act, and it is lost likewise in the shal¬ 
lowness of his own meager vanity. He is like a 
child in his lack of guile, his straight-forward- 
ness, his trustfulness, his deep sincerity of pur¬ 
pose, his simplicity of speech, his impulsiveness 
of action. 

Meanness, cowardice, and dishonesty are 
scarcely ever found among cowpunchers, and 
once discovered in a fellow his companions will 
not tolerate him under any circumstances—an 
attitude which keeps the ranks clean and honor- 


THE COWBOY 


145 


able. There is also a high regard for truthful¬ 
ness and keeping one’s word; an intense con¬ 
tempt for hypocrisy, and a hearty dislike for a 
man who shirks his work. Good-natured to a 
degree, the cowboy nevertheless is quick to re¬ 
sent an insult directed at either himself or his 
friends; he will go a long distance out of his way 
to avenge such wrongs, although he is too fair an 
enemy ever to take an undue advantage of an 
adversary even under such circumstances. 

People are too prone to form their opinions of 
the cowboy’s character and work from the cheap 
stories and movie-plays they read and admire. 
More frequently than otherwise the authors of 
these renditions have never been on the cattle 
trail nor witnessed a round-up, and do not them¬ 
selves know the real cowboy. Thus people 
form a wrong impression of him, an impression 
usually to his discredit. They picture him as 
leading a life full of escapades, irresponsibility, 
and hair-raising adventure, whereas, while actu¬ 
ally facing numerous risks and meeting with 
some adventure, he seldom gets “time off” from 
his long round of arduous duties to indulge in 
amusements in town, or hunts after bandits in 
the brush. So, then, let us make up our minds 
right here that the real cowboy of to-day seldom 
skylarks at his job, seldom gets hilariously and 
woefully drunk, seldom gambles away his money 


146 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


and shirt, seldom “shoots up” the town in saying 
good-bye to it. He is far too busy on the range 
to get time to do any of these picturesque things 
had he a mind to do them. Furthermore, when 
he uses his pistol it is with a useful purpose, as 
a rule; it is generally the dissolute hangers-on in 
cow-towns—“bad” men and loafers—who com¬ 
mit the gun-play, who gamble, who do the other 
intemperate things which the sensation-loving 
cheap writers and dramatists love to lay at the 
door of the idolized cowboy. 

Perhaps one certain factor more than all else 
has contributed to this false conception of the 
cowpuncher’s attributes. This factor is the 
“round-up,” as it is called. For the cowboy this 
is indeed the great event of the year; but what¬ 
ever you do, make certain you do not fall under 
the idea that the round-up is a cowboy carnival. 
Far from a round of idle amusement is it for 
him! It means, as a rule, a rise before dawn, 
ten minutes in which to gulp down a breakfast, 
fourteen to sixteen hours of grinding work in the 
saddle; and lastly, a bed on the “soft side” of 
the ground! 

To-day, owing to the advent of barb-wire in 
the shape of fences, round-ups on the open range 
are a thing of the past; but they are still held, 
on a restricted scale, within such enclosures, each 
ranch-owner inaugurating his own, whereas in 


THE COWBOY 


147 


by-gone times one immense round-up, in which 
delegations of cowboys from various ranches 
joined forces, did for each district. 

Now let us view one of the picturesque old- 
fashioned round-ups. 

Under the spring thaws and rains of the 
Western country the grass grew rapidly and 
luxuriantly, and the cattle began to put on flesh 
to a degree that you could almost see them fat¬ 
ten, hour by hour. The ponies, too, which had 
become scrawny-looking beasts from lean winter¬ 
feeding, began to plump out and look sleek and 
well. 

A winter of running free made even the most 
steady old cow-pony skittish the first time a cow¬ 
boy jumped on him. So they were brought in 
to the home-ranch, along with such horses as had 
never been broken to the saddle at all, and given 
a taste of the controlling hand of a master. The 
wild animals were roped and thrown, then the 
“hackamore”—a braided hair-rope halter—was 
put on their heads, and leather blinds over their 
fear-struck eyes. Generally, when the pony 
was allowed to get upon his feet, he stood stock 
still. But the moment the blinds were removed, 
he gave a snort and a flick of his hind feet and 
raced wildly about the corral, riderless, trying 
his best to get rid of the saddle. 

When he was pretty tired a cowboy would 


148 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


rope him once more, and replace the blinds— 
an act requiring considerable nerve and care with 
an animal inclined to strike out like lightning 
with his hoofs, or ready to lunge, wolflike, at his 
would-be rider with his bared teeth. Reblinded, 
the untamed pony was led outside the corral. 
Then the “broncho-buster” or “flasher”—in 
other words, the daring cowboy—whisked off the 
blinds again, and with the same movement 
vaulted lightly into the saddle. 

“Whoopee-e-e! Ye-e-owie!” he would yell; 
and, as if that and his presence were not enough 
to excite his steed into sufficient action to suit 
him, he would touch the pony’s flanks with his 
spurs and give him a rousing slap on the haunch 
with the flat of his tough hand. 

How that mustang would go! He seemed 
almost to bolt clear through his own skin in his 
anxiety to push his forelegs faster than his rear 
ones. He bolted, he reared, he plunged! He 
raced madly round and round, his sides flecked 
with lather under the saddle-girth. Then he 
went to rearing again, to “sun-fishing,” to com¬ 
ing down stiff-legged after an upward plunge, 
even to rolling. Then it was a spell of 
wild-running again. 

Eveiy time the untamed animal started his 
roll, the cowboy sprang nimbly to the ground; 
at no other time did he leave the pony’s back. 


THE COWBOY 


149 


When the animal struggled to his feet once 
more, his relentless burden went into the saddle 
with a bound and came up with him, and accom¬ 
panied the frightened creature on another round 
of violent gymnastics. Thus the ride was kept 
up until spur and quirt and waning strength con¬ 
vinced the mustang that docility was the best 
policy for the time being at least. Three rides 
of about two hours each are enough to break a 
wild broncho sufficiently for a rider to handle 
him thereafter with comparative ease, although 
of course some animals are found which have 
such vicious tempers and unconquerable spirits 
that they require much longer training, and a 
few never can be tamed. 

For the round-up about ten horses were re¬ 
quired to the man, and it usually took two or 
three weeks of this spring breaking to the saddle 
to bring the horses into tractable condition. 

Like nearly all the principal features of the 
cattle-life of the Seventies and Eighties, the 
round-up was merely a carrying forward of the 
system employed by the Mexicans, when, fifty 
years before, the Texans took over the south¬ 
western portion of that State. It originated in 
the days of peonage, and was first practiced by 
the Spanish dons, who were enormous land- 
owners, and who allowed their cattle and horses 
to run at large. 


150 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


In the very early days there was no branding, 
as ranges were few and too extensive for cattle 
to wander beyond. But as ranges multiplied 
and narrowed and herds increased, a large range 
would become the joint property of a band of 
Texas ranchmen, and their cattle would be al¬ 
lowed to mix freely until the time came for the 
round-up, in spring and fall, when each outfit 
of cowboys gathered to pick out the beeves be¬ 
longing to their own boss. This they were able 
to do by means of certain marks, termed 
“brands,” which had previously been placed 
upon each beeve as soon as it had become a calf 
large enough to follow its mother about; and the 
same mark was also put upon animals which had 
been acquired of other owners by purchase, a 
practice still carried on by all ranchers. At first 
the branding took the form of notching or slit¬ 
ting the dew-lap of the ears; but later the cus¬ 
tom of burning the emblem in the outer skin of 
the haunch, shoulder or side, came into being. 
In adopting a mark, the rancher was usually 
careful to see that it possessed no characteristics 
which would lend it to easy conversion by a 
rival’s iron into his own particular design, but 
not all cattlemen were thus wise and the cow¬ 
boys of such were often in a peck of trouble 
trying to keep the other fellow from stealing his 


THE COWBOY 


151 


cattle, when the neighboring rancher proved to 
be of a dishonest type. 

To the round-up a rancher would often send 
from a dozen to twice that number of men, each 
with his ten horses. And the chuck-wagon had 
to go along as a matter of course, for what would 
hungry cowboys do without “grub”? Some of 
these fellows acted as horse-wranglers, whose 
duty it was to pay particular attention to keep¬ 
ing together the hundred or more horses of the 
party, and to providing them with good pastur¬ 
age and plenty of water. 

On the way to the district round-up point the 
outfit moved slowly, as it was essential that the 
ponies should arrive in prime condition. From 
time to time the cowboys would change their 
mounts, picking out the most unruly of the 
bunch of horses, in order to keep them* as sub¬ 
dued as possible; and thus the procession was 
frequently one of a decidedly bucking character 
from morning until night. 

The chuck-wagon, usually a four-horse affair, 
carried the bedding as well as the provisions, and 
these animals generally were shod, although the 
cow-ponies were not. In every outfit there was 
one man who could shoe horses well. In a 
pinch, almost any of the cowpunchers could do 
a tolerable job with the little portable forge and 


152 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


anvil, just as any one of them could do a fair 
job of cooking in an emergency. The bedding 
was far from elaborate, each man having a pon¬ 
cho and two or three pairs of blankets. If the 
weather were cold, two or three of the fellows 
slept together; in warmer we’ather, every chap 
curled up by himself. 

When sunset came after an excessively hot 
spring day, the mosquitoes—one of the many 
scourges of a cowboy’s life—beset him in a 
fashion almost to drive him crazy. At such 
times there could be seen clouds of the pests ris¬ 
ing up from the dewy grasses of the plains, and 
they attacked every man of the outfit with rapa¬ 
cious impartiality all through the long, hot, sti¬ 
fling night. The horses would neither lie down 
nor graze, but tramped restlessly to and fro un¬ 
til daybreak, switching their tails frantically 
upon their bloodstreaked bodies, which were 
feasting grounds for the vicious insects. On 
such a night the blankets made a man feel abso¬ 
lutely smothered, and yet his only chance for 
sleep was to wrap himself up tightly, head and 
all. Often enough, after a few hours of slap¬ 
ping and tossing, he and his companions would 
rise, build a little fire of damp sage-brush, and 
sit out the rest of the night in the acrid, mosquito- 
repelling smoke. 

The teamster of the chuck-wagon was also the 




- 

m 



■© Underwood and Underwood 


FANCY ROPING IN A COWBOY CAMP 








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THE COWBOY 


153 


cook. His only stove was a hole in the ground, 
provided at every stop. His utensils were of 
the simplest, yet he had to be able to prepare 
well-cooked meals three times a day, meals of 
great quantity, for cowboys never take a back 
seat when it comes to affairs of the appetite. 
He also needs must be a first-class teamster. 
As like as not his four horses were half-wild 
bronchos when he started out, and there was no 
trail, and the round-up point might lead over 
the roughest country imaginable, crossed by 
gullies, sprinkled with buttes where the ground 
was strewn with rocks, intersected by streams, 
holed with bogs, and enlivened by steep hillsides. 
An old-timer, a veteran of the range, this 
“cookie” or “biscuit-shooter,” as he was vari¬ 
ously dubbed, was one of the most valuable men 
in the outfit. 

The first day or two at the round-up was gen¬ 
erally marked by a scene of hilarity and physical 
contests, riding, roping, wrestling, visiting, and 
so on; for it was then, and only then, that the 
opportunity for relaxation arrived. From two 
to four days were allowed for the various outfits 
to come in, and for the boss of the round-up to 
announce his plans. This fellow was a veritable 
Czar. There was no disputing his orders, espe¬ 
cially since the foreman of each outfit saw to it 
that his men obeyed them to the letter. But, 


154 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


really, there was seldom need for criticism or 
complaint, as the boss of the round-up was 
always a veteran, a top-notcher at the game, 
who could handle cows and horses as well as 
men. 

At three o’clock in the morning—mark you, 
that was before the sun had begun to show itself 
—the cooks of the various camps would set up 
the cry, “Come an’ git it!” That meant “Come 
and get your breakfast, which I have just fin¬ 
ished cooking,” but, you see, it was announced 
in a much simpler and more forcible manner. 

So they arose very promptly. Indeed, to that 
stirring reveille there could be no delaying 
whether a fellow was hungry or not; for tardi¬ 
ness in arising in the morning was one of the 
cardinal sins in the unwritten laws of the cow- 
camp. Its penalty was dismissal, swift and sud¬ 
den, and dismissal from a round-up meant per¬ 
petual disgrace for any cowboy upon whom it 
was visited. 

Those of the boys who had not slept in boots 
and trousers, pulled them on; all rolled and 
tied their blankets, buckled on their chaps, 
and lurched over to the chuck-wagon, into which 
they tossed their roll. From the mess-box at the 
rear of the wagon each man took a tin pannikin 
and tin plate, a knife, fork, and spoon. He 
helped himself to hot coffee out of the kettle, 


THE COWBOY 


155 


grabbed a couple of hot biscuits which had been 
cooked before dawn in the Dutch oven, and 
forked up a piece of fat pork. Usually he was 
through eating in eight minutes, seldom taking 
and never being allowed more than ten. 

At the expiration of this time, the cry would 
ring out, “Catch yo’ hosses!” 

Then the cowboys chucked their tinware into 
the “round pan,” a tin dish-washing tub, for 
cookie to cleanse at his leisure, and catching up 
their lariats—which might be made of grass, hair, 
or plaited rawhide—went to the opposite side 
of the wagon, where a corral was made by unit¬ 
ing a number of the lariats, various cowboys 
acting as “posts” for supporting the “fence,” 
which was in the shape of a V, with the wagon 
in the apex. Into the open end, the night- 
wrangler drove the herd of horses. The aper¬ 
ture was then closed, imprisoning the animals. 

In order to save time the two or three best 
ropers in each outfit generally were bidden to 
lasso the horses selected by each rider, and this 
rider invariably chose, for morning work, the 
most wiry animals of his string of ten or so. 

As soon as the horses were caught, the rope 
corral was dropped, every man coiled up his 
lariat, and the remaining horses of the herd were 
turned over to the day-wrangler. This gave the 
weary night-wrangler a chance to get his break- 


156 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


fast, to help cookie wash and wipe the dishes, and 
to climb inside the chuck-wagon for a well- 
earned snooze, while it went lumbering on to¬ 
ward the next camping-site. 

Meantime the cowboys were busy saddling 
their horses. Sometimes this was an easy task; 
more generally it was not. Frequently ponies 
proved so unruly that they had to be thrown be¬ 
fore they could be saddled, and still others were 
so violent that it was necessary to blindfold them 
into submission. Presently, however, all were 
saddled; and all were prancing about, some try¬ 
ing not only to throw their gay riders, but even 
to part company with the disliked saddle at the 
same moment. 

The foreman of each outfit had given his men 
their instructions the night before. Four parties 
were laid out. One of these was to take charge 
of the day-herd; one was to ride ahead of the 
day-herd and drive in any cattle which might be 
along the line of march; one was to spread out 
to the right, and the other was to work to the 
left of the trail. On these two latter bodies of 
men—called “circle-bands”—fell the heaviest 
portion of the morning’s work, and of course 
they were especially chosen for their good horse¬ 
manship, daring, and training in rounding-up. 

The circle-bands often consisted of a score of 
riders, made up of cowboys from two or more 


THE COWBOY 


157 


outfits or ranches, and it was the duty of the 
leader to pick up every head of cattle which was 
found between the line of march and the distant 
side-limit of the district round-up, and drive the 
beeve into the new camping-place. Such a side- 
limit might be anywhere between fifteen and 
thirty miles from the main trail, so it meant hard 
and fast riding and the covering of an immense 
stretch of ground in order to get all the cattle 
into the new camp by noon. 

Two or three miles out, the leader of a circle- 
band would detach two riders, bidding them 
make a bee-line straight into the new camp, driv¬ 
ing all cattle they met ahead of them. The same 
distance farther on, he dispatched two more 
riders on a like errand; another three miles, and 
two others parted company with the band. 
Then, a mile farther along, in broken, hilly 
country, four men were dropped to care for the 
extra work such rough riding would entail. 
And so on, until finally only three men were left, 
these being the foremen of the two outfits and 
one “regular” cowboy. These men, on the out¬ 
side circle, were supposed to be mounted on the 
speediest and best cow-ponies to be had, for they 
had considerably more ground to cover than the 
fellows on the other rib-trails of the great fan 
of ground, which must be swept clean of every 
cow and steer at large upon it. 


158 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


On the open prairie, such as found in parts of 
Nebraska, the round-up was not particularly 
difficult, since the cattle could be seen at great 
distances, permitting straighter traveling on the 
part of the cowboys. But in rough country, 
covered with hills and gulches, such as in western 
Montana, rounding-up cattle was made very diffi¬ 
cult, for even a large herd could easily escape 
observation in some hollow or coulee, necessitat¬ 
ing the riders covering practically every square 
rod of ground within their province. Circle¬ 
riding under these conditions, you can realize, 
would put the best man and the toughest horse 
under a lot of strain, for the course might lie 
along steep ridges, down precipitous banks, 
along boggy ravines, across treacherous sloughs, 
up sliding slopes of talus, over gravelly hills, 
across quicksand beds, over plateaux of rocks 
and sage-brush, through thorny chaparral, across 
level ground treacherously undermined by count¬ 
less prairie-dog holes; over creeks and streams 
with swift currents; through deep channels 
with unsafe beds; and across the hated alkali 
wastes. 

Then, too, came trouble after the cattle were 
sighted. A bunch of Texas long-horns would 
stampede away, horns tossing and tails in the 
air, as soon as they saw a rider appear in the dis¬ 
tance. Animals of the kind known as “Western 


THE COWBOY 


159 


range stock” drove much easier, although it was 
necessary to ride right up to them to get them 
started, so sluggish and obstinate were they. 
Some of the short-horns and cattle from the 
East, proved the most intractable of all. They 
paid no attention to the peremptory, trailing 
“hic-oo-oo,” the Southwestern driving-cry of the 
cowboy, but had to be turned in the right direc¬ 
tion by the harsher note of a popping pistol fired 
close to their heads. 

If you had been standing, about noon, in the 
new camp, and the ground on all sides was level 
enough to give you an uninterrupted view for 
a considerable distance, what an interesting 
sight you would have been able to see! You 
would have seen the inside circle-riders, the 
center circle-riders, and the outside circle-riders, 
veiy small and far away, with herds of cattle 
driving before them, all converging to your cen¬ 
tral point, the camp. Faintly the coaxing calls 
of the cowboys would have reached you, growing 
louder as they drew nearer. And how their 
ponies would go dashing here and there, looping 
in and out along the outskirts of the cattle herds, 
as the clever and intelligent little cow-ponies 
frustrated every attempt of the beeve mutineers 
to break out of bounds! 

By noon the day-wrangler had brought in the 
saddle herd, and as each circle-rider came in with 


160 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


his cattle, he swallowed his dinner and proceeded 
to rope his own new assortment of ponies for 
the afternoonjs work, which was to consist of 
operations entirely different than the morning’s 
duties and which required horses especially 
trained. 

The herd or herds, as the case might be, which 
had been brought in by the circle-riders, were 
held in a compact bunch, the riders forming a 
ring outside them. Then two men from any 
given outfit, who were quick at reading brands, 
rode into each group of cattle and picked out the 
animals of their own brand. This was by no 
means an easy task, for the cattle were shifting 
constantly. Also, there was always more or less 
peril in performing the job, as some ugly steer 
might take it into his head at any moment to 
charge the rider hemmed in on all sides by other 
cattle, and attempt to gore him to death, else un¬ 
seat him, the latter prospect holding very little 
more cheer for the victim, since he was likely to 
be trampled to death by scores of hoofs before 
he could arise. And when an animal was 
spotted, it required an incredible amount of 
adroitness to work the beeve out to the edge of 
the herd and free of it. In this operation the 
cowboy liberally used the quirt and spur, for 
every animal would do its best to dash back in, 
rather than proceed peaceably to the little herd 


THE COWBOY 


161 


of its own brand, where other cowpunchers were 
circling about and “holding the cut.” 

The fact of the matter is, this process of weed¬ 
ing out the beeves of one brand was called “cut- 
ting-out,” and the ponies used had learned their 
work just as proficiently as any sheep-dog ever 
mastered the art of handling sheep. Quickly 
they saw which animal their rider was trying to 
single out and turn, and from that moment they 
could be given a loose rein and would work the 
desired beeve out of the herd almost unaided. 

Cutting-out ponies have shown such rare ap¬ 
titude for the work that numbers of them have 
become famous in the range districts throughout 
the West and Southwest. Some of these have 
performed the almost miraculous feat, after be¬ 
ing shown a certain heifer or steer, of going un¬ 
ridden into a large herd after it, of hedging the 
animal, bit by bit, out of the mass of its kind, 
and keeping it out until it could be roped by a 
cowboy. Not only have cutting-out ponies per¬ 
formed this trick, but in tests they have been 
known to do it three or more times in succession, 
proving beyond all question that their work was 
done intelligently and systematically. 

Usually by the middle of the afternoon this 
scene of sorting out the cattle of different own¬ 
ers into separate herds would have appeared one 
of the wildest confusion to the outsider. Herds 


162 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


stood here and there on the prairie, each with 
its cordon of cowboy guards, and every minute 
or so a beeve would break away and you would 
have seen it hotly pursued by one or more gal¬ 
loping lads on the wiry little ponies. But, in 
reality, there was no confusion or jumble. A 
well-handled round-up was a marvel of precision, 
winning your greatest admiration. 

One of the most important features of the 
round-up was the “cutting” and branding of the 
calves. When a cow with a calf was brought 
out of the main herd by the brand-readers, the 
calf invariably followed. This was taken as 
evidence of ownership. 

The next thing to do was to brand the calves. 
They were put in a rope corral, made by con¬ 
necting lariats end to end, supported by cow¬ 
boys. Waiting inside the corral were a couple 
of expert ropers on horseback, also one or two 
men with branding-irons kept hot in a fire, and a 
dozen or so men called “wrestlers.” The work 
progressed with bewildering speed. A roper 
caught a bleating and frightened calf by the two 
hind-legs, took a twist with the lariat around 
the horn of his saddle, and dragged the calf in 
the direction of the fire. Two wrestlers seized 
the animal; one, by the chin and fore-leg; the 
other, by both hind-legs. Then the noose of the 
lariat was removed, and the roper rode off to 


THE COWBOY 


163 


lasso another calf, while the brander deftly ap¬ 
plied his hot branding-iron and seared the ranch- 
owner’s mark into the tender flesh so quickly 
that it was over almost as soon as it had begun. 

When there were upwards of a hundred calves 
in a corral, the scene was one of the greatest 
noise and movement, as well as excitement. 
The ropers, spurring and checking their fierce 
little mustangs, dragged the calves up to the 
wrestlers so fast that it kept those fellows sweat¬ 
ing to take care of them. The branders, with 
glowing irons, and sleeves up to elbows, shot 
their irons alternately into fire and then against 
cringing skin; while, with voice raised above the 
din, the tallyman shouted out the number and 
sex of each calf marked. The dust arose in 
clouds; and the shouts, cheers, curses, and laugh¬ 
ter of the men united with the lowing of the cows 
and the frantic bleating of the roped calves, to 
make a perfect babel of sound. 

Such was branding in its simplest form; but 
when the brand-herd of cows and calves was a 
large one, time was saved by throwing the rope 
corral around the herd where it stood; a fire was 
built in the corner, and the ropers lassoed the 
calves from their mothers’ sides. This was 
mighty dangerous work, because every once in a 
while a mother-cow would become enraged at the 
treatment accorded her youngster, and would 


164 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


proceed to tear up the ground in the direction of 
the nearest men. Not until she would be 
brought to her knees with a lariat or two, and 
was strongly tied, was it safe for the calf-roping 
to proceed. 

Additional excitement was occasioned when 
there was a “maverick” to brand. A maverick 
is a beeve which has escaped branding and which 
may be all the way from one to three years old 
and is no longer attached to mother’s “apron 
strings.” A three-year-old maverick, particu¬ 
larly if a steer, is a robust antagonist for 
branders to go up against, for he has a prodi¬ 
gious strength, and never having felt the confin¬ 
ing influence of a lariat about him, much less the 
sting of the hot branding-iron, is bound to resent 
fiercely any attempt to mark him. When such 
an animal was finally branded, and was let up 
on his feet by the wrestlers, it was usually the 
signal for the men on foot to do some lively 
scampering, while the men ahorse had to be 
keenly on the alert. 

By evening the fifteen herds—if there were 
seven outfits in the round-up—were reduced to 
eight. These consisted of the main herd, com¬ 
posed of the animals which were to be driven in 
the direction of the march, and the seven cut-out 
brand herds of each of the outfits. 

Every cowboy outfit, in turn, undertook to 


THE COWBOY 


165 


watch herd for the night. To do this the guard 
was divided into four watches of two hours 
each. The first guard had to “bed-down” the 
cattle, which meant to bunch them closer and 
closer together by riding around them in narrow¬ 
ing circles, until they lay down and fell asleep. 
On a fine, clear night the cattle would do this 
contentedly, soothed by the wailing “hic-oo-oo” 
of the guard, or, in many cases by the songs and 
night chants of the cowboys in camp. 

I have already shown, at the beginning of this 
chapter, that guarding night herd on stormy 
nights, is not only unpleasant but difficult and 
extremely dangerous. You have seen that the 
cattle are then restless, unwilling to lie down, 
quick to fly in a panic and stampede at the least 
unexpected provocation. It is at such times as 
this that the cowboy’s timbre is tried to the tenth 
degree. Before he comes back from the stam¬ 
pede, from the roaring, ripping, tremendous rush 
of thousands of terrified animals, he will have 
shown whether he is worthy of his heritage or 
not,—just as the Kid did. 


V 


THE SURVEYOR 

“1* TR. EVANS,” I asked, “just what 
% / 1 sort of qualities does a man need to 

A. ▼ JL be a good surveyor?” 

“Well,” said the Chief Geologist very slowly, 
“there are two qualities which he simply must 
have: he must have intelligence and grit. 
Then there are other attributes which he ought 
to have if he wants to be a top-notcher in his 
profession.” 

“Such as what?” I propounded. 

“Such as strength and suppleness; the ability 

to stand a lot of hard punishment from the 

forces of nature; to come up smiling after the 

worst of it. He should be a good climber, an 

untiring walker, a first-class horseman. He 

ought to know how to pack a vicious mule and 

get the best results out of a lazy burro. He 

would be handicapped if he could not row a boat 

and paddle a canoe in a bad current. He would 

soon find himself in an awkward fix if he could 

not swim; and if suddenly thrown into ice-cold 

water, and his matches wet, he should be good 

166 


» 




THE SURVEYOR 


167 


enough woodsman to know how to keep himself 
from having a chill. The fact is, surveyors on 
some jobs are wet to the skin more than two- 
thirds of the working-day, and they must have 
constitutions strong enough to counteract the ill 
effects. They must be able to sleep peacefully 
with a dozen mosquitoes on nose or forehead. 
They must be able to sleep restfully on a rock 
mattress. If a landowner swears at them, they 
must treat him in a gentlemanly and courteous 
manner. Oh, surveying is no job for a weak¬ 
ling 1” 

“I am beginning to think that way myself,” 
said I sententiously. “Where does the Geo¬ 
logical Survey get the bulk of its surveyors?” 

“Through the Civil Service Commission,” re¬ 
plied Mr. Evans, as he tapped his pencil lightly 
upon the plateglass top of his mahogany desk, 
and casually ran his eyes over a huge map of un¬ 
surveyed Western country which lay beneath the 
transparency. “Years ago the Government 
used to take in young college graduates through 
recommendation of friends, but for some time 
past they have been selected by competitive tests 
held in various cities throughout the States. 
Any man who thinks himself qualified may ap¬ 
ply for an examination, and if qualified, he will 
be given an even chance for a job with the next 


168 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

fellow, regardless of ‘puli’ or prestige. If his 
test average is high enough he gets the job. 
Under the old appointive system Uncle Sam 
used to get some poor surveyors. Now he sel¬ 
dom does—that is, he never gets men incompe¬ 
tent in the manner of not knowing their busi¬ 
ness, although I’ll admit that a written test is 
not always a fair way of proving a man’s grit 
and resourcefulness in time of great peril; so we 
still get some fellows whose personality is a 
matter of deep regret.” 

“Do these unmanly fellows stick as a rule?” I 
asked. I was almost sure what his answer 
would be. 

“I’m glad to say they don’t,” said the Chief 
Geologist, with vigor. “We cannot consistently 
discharge a man of this type, however, unless he 
proves a flagrant coward or weakling to the det¬ 
riment of his work. But that class of man is 
usually a fault-finder, finicky about details, and 
he soon gets so disgusted with the hard work of 
Government surveying that he quits. Then we 
all say, very happily, ‘Thank goodness!’ ” 

“Mr. Evans, I judge you must have a good 
many surveyors under your direction.” 

“Quite a considerable number—yes. In all, 
we probably have close to three hundred men. 
Some of these are engaged in hydrographic sur¬ 
veying, which has to do with charting the sea - 


THE SURVEYOR 


169 


coasts and the shores of various bodies of water 
in this country, as well as measuring the stream- 
flow. Others are engaged at topographic sur¬ 
veying, a branch of the work which specializes 
in mapping the general contours of the land. 
And still others are engaged at plane surveying, 
or the measurement of independent sections of 
land, preparatory to the erection of railway 
bridges, dams, canals, etc.” 

“I would give a good deal if I could accom¬ 
pany one of your surveying parties to a rugged 
region and see them actually at work,” I ven¬ 
tured. “Could it be arranged?” 

The Chief Geologist smiled. “Do you mean 
that?” 

“I certainly do, sir.” 

He began to study the big map under the 
glass. After a moment or two he looked up. 
“Brandews has a crew at work now out in the 
Grand Canyon. What if I give you a letter of 
introduction to him?” 

“That would suit me tip-top,” was my quick 
reply. 

The upshot of it all was, with the introduction 
in my pocket, I boarded a train on the Santa 
Fe Railroad a few days later and subsequently 
found myself shaking hands with Robert Bran- 
dews, head surveyor of this party. We met in 
a hotel at the noted American wonder, the 


170 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Grand Canyon. Brandews was a sinewy, agile 
man of about thirty-five, slender, and with 
kindly gray eyes you would take a liking to the 
moment you looked into them. He was attired 
in a pair of moleskin breeches, tucked in high- 
topped laced boots, a tan woolen shirt, and a 
soft-felt, Western type of hat. At his waist 
was a braided leather belt, to which was sus¬ 
pended a calfskin sheath holding a fine-looking 
hand-axe. His sleeves were rolled up, and his 
tanned muscular forearms showed the marks of 
much strenuous work and long exposure to 
burning sun. 

‘Til be delighted to have you with us as long 
as you wish to stay; and so will the rest of the 
boys, I’m sure,” was Brandews’s cordial greet¬ 
ing. “The other fellows—a dozen all told—are 
up the Canyon at work. I came over here on 
purpose to meet you. We’ll go out and take a 
squint at the Canyon, and then join the bunch.” 

We walked until we had come to the top of a 
rocky elevation. On the crest of this I stopped 
in amazement and wonder. Not three yards in 
front of me the whole world seemed suddenly to 
fall sheer away. To the bottom of the great 
wall at whose top I trembled, my companion 
told me was a drop of 6,800 feet! But for that 
which lay beyond I might have thought that I 



THE SURVEYOR 171 

had come to the “jumping-off place” of the 
world—the edge of the roof of the universe. 

A little way out, so near it seemed I could 
have taken a running jump and thrown my arms 
around it, arose from the depths a fantastic pin¬ 
nacle, elaborately carved by the hand of nature. 
Farther away, in splashes and belts of riotous 
color, lay naked mesa, plateau, peak, and crag, 
with frowning buttes and towering ledges inter¬ 
vening in robust and boastful profusion. Min¬ 
aret and spire; dome, facade, and campanile, 
stood guard over the riven precipices. The slant¬ 
ing rays of the sun burnished the rugged sur¬ 
faces here and there in silver, in russet, and in 
gold. Strange and bewitching shapes merged 
out of the purple and gray mists of the abyss, 
making it appear that before me was being held 
a review of every dream and nightmare of archi¬ 
tecture which the mind of man had ever con¬ 
ceived. 

“What do you think of it?” asked Robert 
Brandews, his eyes twinkling in enjoyment at 
my plainly-expressed wonder and awe. 

“It doesn’t seem real,” I said; “it’s like a fairy- 
story world—a fairy-story world which some imp 
of an old witch has set all on fire with flames of 
a hundred different colors!” ® 

He nodded. His gray eyes glowed as he him- 


i 


172 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

t 

self gazed at the picture, the picture he must 
have seen scores of times before. There was a 
deep hush. Then Brandews said in a half-apolo¬ 
getic whisper. “Don’t blame me. It’s never 
twice the same. If you move a few yards away” 
—he suited the action to the words—“it looks 
quite different. Even if you stay still, under the 
changing light of the clouds, new shapes appear 
and old ones dissolve.” 

It was true. How mystic! how alluring! A 
dozen times I altered my position, each time wit¬ 
nessing new grandeur; and if I stayed a little 
while in each spot these scenes melted into 
others equally as beautiful. 

“The old Colorado River is responsible for all 
these carved castles, towers, and rostrums,” re¬ 
marked the surveyor. “It has taken centuries 
for this swift and mighty stream to eat through 
and honeycomb the mountain in this fashion—a 
mountain that was once a great mass of solid 
rock, limestone and sandstone; but it has done it 
in the way we see, and it is still biting away the 
bottomlands and walls of the Canyon.” 

“Of all the work of the Survey, I should think 
this Grand Canyon job of yours would be the 
most dangerous,” said I. 

Brandews shook his head. “It is not danger¬ 
ous unless carelessness creeps in. You see, the 
lofty buttes are just as high as the level plateau; 


173 


m 

, ■ * * •"V* - 

fHE SURVEYOR 

they can, therefore, be mapped by a determina¬ 
tion of their bases. But, though you can’t see 
it from the top here, those bases are fearfully ir¬ 
regular, and a cliff a few hundred feet high 
might take miles to go around. You will notice 
that there are plenty of terraces following the 
Canyon. Some of these are almost as level for 
stretches as a well-made road, but they run the 
wrong way to assist one in getting across the 
deep gorge, and one must go down into the very 
bottom to do this.” 

“How do you get down there?” I asked in 
wonderment. 

Brandews laughed whimsically. “I’ll admit 
it looks as if falling down would be the only way 
to do it. Well, that would be the quickest way, 
but I’m afraid a man’s friends wouldn’t be able 
to find quite all the pieces of him after he had 
landed. We surveyors think the most satisfac¬ 
tory way to descend into the bed-lands of the 
Canyon is to climb down. There is an Indian 
trail on this side which helps a little, and in three 
other places there are roads, one of which is on 
the north side; but all of these passages are very 
dangerous ones, and can only be traversed by 
hardened travelers supplied with well-trained, 
sure-footed animals.” 

“What kind of animals are best for such 
work?” 


174 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

“Burros,” answered Brandews. “They are 
small and sturdy, of good temper, and they pos¬ 
sess that instinct for danger, and that ability to 
hold poise in a tight place, which makes them so 
valuable on narrow and treacherous mountain 
trails. Horses and mules are not quite so well 
adapted to such traveling on account of their 
greater weight and size, but both kinds of these 
animals can be trained to do remarkably good 
work at mountain path-finding if their owner 
puts himself to that task. To-morrow morn¬ 
ing I am going to take a party across the Can¬ 
yon by way of the old Cameron trail, leaving an¬ 
other party on this side. Later, with one party 
working in conjunction with the other, we will 
strike a line across the nine miles of gap lying 
between both plateaus. Would you like to join 
my party? It will give you a good chance to see 
some real stiff mountain-climbing.” 

I signified my desire to join Brandews’s party, 
and when daylight broke next day we were on 
our way. At the point where the old trail di¬ 
gressed downward into the gorge, our half-dozen 
fellows took leave of the half-dozen who were to 
remain on the south side. At my own request 
I decided to stay with Burns, the head-packer, 
while Brandews took his place at the head of the 
column. As the pack-train passed by us, Burns 
scrutinized every pack, to make sure that none 


THE SURVEYOR 


175 


should become loose and slip off, or cause the 
animal annoyance at a critical stage of the jour¬ 
ney. 

Burns and I chatted freely,, as we took up the 
trail after our companions. ut as soon as the 
path fell away over the edge, 1 jth of us were too 
much occupied in watching the ground to do any 
more talking. When we started out, somebody 
had impressed me with the idea that the way was 
reasonably smooth for mules and burros; but we 
had not been wending downward ten minutes be¬ 
fore I began to wonder how any four-footed 
animal short of a goat could keep his footing. 
The long line of burros, bobbing sluggishly 
along in front, tails toward me, soon convinced 
me, however, that my own burro stood as good 
a chance of keeping the trail as they. 

For several hundred feet the trail fell away 
in this fashion, then suddenly turned sharply to 
the left along one of the broad terraces of rock. 
After a quarter-mile of easy going, we came to 
a slope of loose shale which almost filled up the 
path. The pack-mules picked their way over 
this without a moment’s hesitation. Then the 
shelf narrowed, and Burns called out to me: 
“Guess you’d better get off.” 

In response I slipped from my animal, and 
going to his head started to walk along with him, 
although in order to do this I had to crowd close 

\ 


176 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

to his belly to keep from going off on the other 
side. I was just beginning to make up my mind 
I would much prefer riding, when Burns 
shouted from behind: “What in thunder you 
walking along beside the burro for? You look 
as if you was tryin’ to hold him up! Why in 
Tom’s neck don’t you get in front of him where 
you will have more room?” 

“I thought I couldn’t guide him as well that 
way,” I protested. 

My words were greeted by an explosion of 
hearty laughter. “Say, don’t you s’pose this 
yere burro knows where to put his pesky feet 
better’n you do?” cried Burns. “Leave it to 
him! You just mosey along, regardless, right 
in front, till this shelf gets less shelving. You 
can mount again then. You know on an in¬ 
clined bank like this a rider makes an animal 
top-heavy.” 

As Burns said, I found the burro well able to 
take care of himself while I strode on ahead. 
Down we went into the chasm, sometimes climb¬ 
ing over heaps of fallen rock, sometimes pitch¬ 
ing down slopes which seemed almost perpen¬ 
dicular to me. As we descended, the sun arose 
higher, and the air seemed to become less tenu¬ 
ous and almost visible. 

I had been expecting the wonderful radiance 
of the valley to become tenfold richer under the 


THE SURVEYOR 


177 


noonday sun. Judge of my surprise, therefore, 
when that hour brought to my eyes a general 
fading out of the beautiful colors and the air 
seemed to have become so thick that it refracted 
rather than filtered the bright rays of the sun. 
Indeed, the whole atmosphere seemed to be 
glowing with a metallic luster which was most 
trying to the eyes and confusing to the senses. 
Lines of strata became distorted in some in¬ 
stances—quite vanished in others. The buttes 
appeared to flatten; the mirrored shadows to 
diminish, and the darker shades to turn an inky 
black. Objects familiar a moment back were 
now strange and grotesque, bearing absolutely 
no resemblance to their old selves. Under this 
magical play of the heavenly lights, I felt I could 
not have made my way back one mile had I been 
offered all the gold of the richest kingdom in the 
universe. 

But it remained for the late afternoon to 
bring out the real witchery of the surroundings. 
As the evening clouds began to gather and the 
twilight shadows to deepen, casting queer shapes 
aslant our path, the titanic temples and clois¬ 
ters seemed to awake and stretch themselves to 
meet the outspreading cloak of purple mystery. 
Little by little the atmosphere had lost its 
density and become permeated with oozing color 
values which, seeping through, now began to 


178 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

glow warmly upon the distant rocks and pin¬ 
nacles. Once more the colossal buttes assumed 
their due proportions; while a thousand bizarre 
forms, which had not been observable in the in¬ 
tense light of day, thrust themselves forward 
into an egotistical prominence. Then the sun 
disappeared from our view, although it still 
shone radiantly upon the rocks high over our 
heads. 

Burns prodded his burro up close behind me. 
“If you like pretty things handed out by nature, 
just watch,” he advised. “You’ll see the richest 
bouquet you’ve beheld yet.” 

He was right. For the first time since morn¬ 
ing I found I was able to look upwards without 
being blinded by the sunlight. As the hidden 
sun declined, its rays fell slopingly full upon the 
upper works of the great Canyon. They struck 
athwart crest and protuberance in a bewitching 
belt of saffron and pale-rose, while reflected upon 
the fleecy clouds in the cobalt-blue of the sky 
were the same tones. Underlying this pallid 
brilliancy was the deep, vibrating Egyptian-reds 
of the body of the Canyon itself. No sounds 
came up from this, nevertheless it seemed fairly 
to quiver with life. A faint blue haze began to 
gather in the dusk—a haze changing second by 
second into countless differing hues and com¬ 
binations of purples, violets, and madder-lakes, 


THE SURVEYOR 


179 


deepening as the twilight merged into night. 
Strange metallic beams of burnished bronzes, in 
amethyst, emerald, ruby, and turquoise, lay 
across velvet shadows here and there. But pres¬ 
ently these, too, had merged into the engulfing 
sea of purple—a sea of royal mystery which had 
engulfed all the playful elfins of brighter color. 

Burns was a prince of a fellow. The head- 
packer let me stare at that beautiful and gor¬ 
geous display until night had really come and 
the stars were shining brightly—until I awoke, 
with a start, and recollected the rest of the party. 

The night was well advanced when our party 
reached the crest of the Canyon on the north 
side. The journey had been made without mis¬ 
hap, although attended by considerable risk. It 
had needed a keen eye at times to discern that 
such apparently impassable ground was in¬ 
tended for a trail. 

Once on top we made a hasty camp; the packs 
and saddles were taken off the animals, and they 
were hobbled out to graze on the rich herbage 
of the Kaibab plateau. Rolled in my blanket, 
in Brandews’s tent, after a good supper cooked 
over pine knots, I fell asleep in that quick man¬ 
ner which comes to the tired and healthy tramper 
of the wilds. 

Next day, as I watched Brandews busying 
himself over a plotting job, I observed: “I 


180 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


suppose you fellows of the Survey have some ex¬ 
citing times occasionally?” 

“A fellow can’t be in this business long with¬ 
out having a close shave,” said the surveyor em¬ 
phatically. “I’m not saying it to brag, but I’ve 
gone through a good many of ’em; and I might 
say every chap in my party has had his share.” 

“Can you recall a story at this moment?” 

“Oh, yes; there’s the time when I was up in 
the Minnesota swamp country, back in 1910. 
When you’re eleven miles away from the nearest 
road, and that only a measly ‘corduroy,’ in a 
swamp into which you can’t take a horse, and 
which is too brush-ridden for you to paddle a 
boat in, you begin to think that you might be on 
a nicer sort of surveying job. Maybe you didn’t 
know that this big Chippewa swamp-land, which 
the Indians ceded over to the Government, to be 
held in trust for ’em, covers close to three million 
acres. Why, I’ve seen parts of that swamp so 
soft that we’d have to make a sort of platform of 
brush to set our transits on; and three or four 
of us would often have to pull out one chap who 
had sunk below his waist in the muck—and that 
with only half a pack instead of the regula¬ 
tion load. I got caught in a fix. something like 
that, and I tell you it came near being the last of 
me!” 

“Did it happen in that same swamp?” I asked. 


THE SURVEYOR 


181 


“Yes; and the very first week we were at work, 
too. You know each man in a surveying party 
is supposed to carry a pack, all the properties of 
the camp being divided into equal weights, so 
that no man carries more or less than his share. 
Each load is divided, also, in order that it will be 
well-balanced and rest in an easy position just 
below the nape of the neck. To help keep it 
there a broad strap, called a ‘tump-strap,’ is 
passed across the forehead. If the strap is a little 
long, or the load adjusted so that it hangs too far 
down, the effect is to jerk the head back at a very 
uncomfortable angle; and if the load is too high, 
the bearer has to walk bent almost double. It’s 
a trick to pack a load in the right way, but all 
surveyors soon master it to a nicety; if they 
don’t, they suffer, especially on a long hike. 

“In that great swamp of the Chippewas, our 
party was able sometimes to proceed straight¬ 
away without any axework, but more often all 
hands had to do a lot of grubbing in the thick 
under-growth and second-growth before we could 
attain a clear opening for making a ‘sight.’ Al¬ 
though most swamps are fairly level, this one had 
a strong fall toward Red Lake River, making 
the task of mapping out a system of drainage 
more than ordinarily easy for us.” 

“I should think you could cut a drainage ditch, 
in that case, direct from the highest point of the 


182 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


marsh to the lower levels of Red Lake River,” I 
ventured. “Wouldn’t that do the job?” 

“Surely,” said Brandews, with a tolerating 
smile at my enthusiasm; “but how would you as¬ 
certain that highest point? With the eye? 
That practice would hardly be adequate, espe¬ 
cially since you can only see one 'high point’ at a 
time in the dense Minnesota swamp-land I refer 
to—or practically that. You see, this swamp 
is like a jungled continent on a small scale. Its 
topographic features have to be measured in 
inches instead of the hundreds of feet they ac¬ 
tually cover. If this ground were rocky there 
would be no swamp at all, for all its deposits of 
water would form channels and go flowing into 
Red Lake River in a natural manner. But the 
ground is, on the contrary, very spongy; there¬ 
fore, it retains and retards, so that the water lies 
stagnant instead of running. Add to this the 
thousands of years’ of rotting vegetation, which 
has been added to the swamp bed, and you will 
realize how impossible it is for water like this to 
do what you would expect most water bodies to 
do—seek their own level.” 

“That is quite plain,” I admitted. 

“Now,” resumed the surveyor, “what we had 
to do was to trace the highest point or points, 
after finding them, and ascertain the relation of 
one to the other. This would divide the swamp 




THE SURVEYOR 


183 


into several drainage areas, each with its ‘peak.’ 
Our next step was to determine with our 
transits and instruments the best line of drainage 
for each area, each of these lines to run into a 
main or trunk-line which must be large enough 
to take care of the entire volume of smaller 
canals and carry the flow uninterruptedly to Red 
Lake River.” 

I gave vent to a soft whistle. “I think I am 
beginning to realize a little of the real bigness of 
a surveyor’s job, Mr. Brandews. There’s not 
a foot of the country you miss, is there?” 

“Not more than thirteen inches, at least,” was 
the jocose reply. “But I’m forgetting my ad¬ 
venture in these details. When we were on that 
job I was not in charge, as I am here; in fact, I 
was rather a beginner. Different times the chief 
would send me out off the line of march with in¬ 
structions to report on the nature of the ground. 
Thus it chanced that one afternoon I was dis¬ 
patched on such a trip to the right of the line, 
being cautioned to be careful I did not get in the 
bog, as it was known to be very treacherous in 
that particular vicinity, two men having had nar¬ 
row escapes from it only the day previous. 

“For twenty or thirty feet I had hard going. 
The undergrowth was so tangled that I had to 
literally hack my way through with my axe. 
Then, to my delight, I came across a smooth 


184 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


piece of marsh overlaid with stagnant water. I 
tested every step carefully before allowing my 
full weight upon the foot. Finding the bottom 
of the morass firmer than most of such bodies we 
had thus far encountered, I was convinced that 
there must be reasonably solid ground on the 
other side. Knowing, moreover, that a bit of in¬ 
formation such as this would be of great assist¬ 
ance to my party, I ventured to cross the stretch 
by picking my way along a small ridge or ‘hog¬ 
back,’ which ran along the farther end of the 
shallow lake. Such hog-backs are quite numer¬ 
ous in this big swamp, as are also water-sur¬ 
rounded patches of turf of the island type. 

Trees and undergrowth grew thick on the 
hog-back I had selected—so thick, in fact, that 
I regretted my choice of route after I had 
chopped incessantly for a half-hour and had 
made little advance. Provoked at the time I 
was losing, I decided to attempt going across 
the neck of a slough still separating me from my 
objective, if it were not too spongy. Here the 
ground was damp and bepuddled, but there was 
a sufficiency of promising looking grassy humps 
to make me think I could successfully get across 
by leaping from one to the other. 

“It was really one of the most palpitating 
quagmires I had picked out—the kind I learned 
to know and avoid afterwards. But then I was 


THE SURVEYOR 


185 


green in swampcraft and did not heed the warn¬ 
ings nature handed out to me at every step I 
took. The first hummocks held up under me 
pretty well. As I progressed, however, they be¬ 
came more jellylike and had a ‘give’ that was ex¬ 
tremely unpleasant to feel. 

“Another step I took, and this time the quag¬ 
mire seemed to resent my intrusion in an unmis¬ 
takable manner; for large black bubbles formed 
where my feet were sinking into the muck, and as 
I pulled them out it was with extreme dif¬ 
ficulty and with a loud sucking noise whose por¬ 
tentousness filled me with a strange uneasiness. 

“But the other side was now only a little way 
off, and I was too greatly tempted to go on to 
think of turning back. I took another step. I 
came down as lightly as I could, but the tuft was 
deceiving, and I began to sink with a rapidity 
quite alarming. That time I had to throw all 
my weight back on my left foot, which was on 
more solid ground, before I could brace myself 
in order to pull out the submerged foot. But 
the act proved disastrous. The added weight 
upon my left foot caused it to break through the 
upper crust, and the first thing I knew that foot 
also was imprisoned by the foul fiend who in¬ 
habited the ooze of the quagmire. 

“I saw that I was in a pretty bad fix—that I 
was getting worse off every second. The harder 


186 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


I pulled on this foot or that, the deeper my strug¬ 
gles seemed to send it. In almost no time at all 
I was up to my knees, and the pressure of the 
sucking mud and slime was so great that my legs 
were beginning to feel a strange numbness which 
came very near to driving me frantic. Only by 
the greatest efforts did I keep cool, as I knew I 
must if I were ever to get out of my predicament. 

“Several more efforts to extricate mvself con- 

* 

vinced me of the futility of escape in that man¬ 
ner. Perhaps my comrades were near enough 
to hear my cries! Raising my voice I shouted— 
again—again. But only the croaking of frogs 
and the dismal booming cry of a distant bittern 
met my ears. Then I thought of my revolver. 
Taking it from its holster I fired three times— 
the signal for help. How I strained my ears for 
the hoped-for answering shots! But they did 

not come. I realized that mv comrades were 

%/ 

out of hearing—that by some superhuman effort 
I must get myself out of the clutches of that 
quagmire without delay, else find my grave with¬ 
in its noisome depths before many more minutes 
had passed. 

“Why I had not thought of it before I cannot 
conceive; but now I suddenly recollected my sur¬ 
veyor’s rod which I had brought along and had 
let fall in my efforts to get out. This was of 
steel, and plenty stiff enough to bear a man’s 


THE SURVEYOR 


187 


weight. With a last gleam of hope in my heart 
I now seized it and laid it across the two nearest 
hummocks, then doubled my body over upon it, 
an act which greatly relieved my legs of the 
weight above them and prevented me from sink¬ 
ing any deeper. 

“My next task was to free my legs. This I 
found to be no easy job, for the muck had gained 
a terrific grip upon both. But it was worth my 
desperate efforts. For a time it looked as if I 
was doomed to stay in the trap; but finally, by 
dint of fierce and continuous strain, I managed 
to pull out the foot that was in to the least depth. 
Cheered by this success, I then concentrated my 
energies upon the other foot, tugging until the 
veins of my forehead and neck must have stood 
out like whipcords and until I was streaming 
with perspiration. 

“Say, you can’t imagine my joy when I felt 
that foot giving, too! Then it stuck, and my 
spirits dropped like a plummet. Nor could I 
free it, pull as hard as I would. As a last resort 
I took my axe, and began chopping the thick 
mud around my leg. It was ticklish work, as that 
axe was as sharp as a razor, and I had to shave 
close, and a little miscalculation would have re¬ 
sulted in a gash from which I must have bled to 
death. But I guess luck or the Lord was with 
me, for I managed to loose the ground enough 


188 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

to get my foot started upward once more, and 
some hard tugging brought it completely out of 
the ooze, though not without a painfully twisted 
ankle. 

“ Trembling like a leaf, well-nigh exhausted, I 
was not able to retrace my steps for ten or fifteen 
minutes. Then, by laying my rod down and 
picking my way along it from hummock to hum¬ 
mock I limped back to the hog-back, and fi¬ 
nally reached my companions.” 

“Have many lives been lost in Survey work, 
Mr. Brandews?” I asked. 

“You will be surprised to hear that, in spite 
of hundreds of close escapes and the dangerous 
character of the work in some places, only two 
lives have been lost in the Geological Survey in 
the forty years of its existence as a separate 
branch of the Department of the Interior. This 
is really astounding when you stop to think that 
much of our work is done in the wildest sections 
of lands, parts remote from civilization and 
often unexplored. Fortune has seemed to favor 
us.” 

“Does sickness bother surveyors’ camps to any 
extent?” 

“Hard work, clean living, good judgment, 
and the open air, are worth all the drugs you can 
collect—and a whole lot more. Of course a 
small chest of medical supplies accompanies each 


THE SURVEYOR 


189 


party, to be used in case of absolute necessity, 
but it is seldom opened.” 

“But how about accidents?” 

“Such as what?” 

“Oh, breaking a leg by a fall, or something 
like that.” 

“I don’t see what business any man on the 
Survey has to fall. That isn’t what he’s there 
for. But in case he should be so clumsy, our 
first-aid chest is well-stocked with splints and 
bandages; and every man in a party knows how 
to apply them, too. Trust any man whose busi¬ 
ness calls him into the wilds to know how to dress 
up a wound or take care of a sudden illness with 
the simplest of remedies. If our kit gives out we 
know where to find herbs for almost any ill. 
The Lord has provided; man has only to search 
—when the woods are all around.” 

“Do you consider swamp work more danger¬ 
ous than any other kind, Mr. Brandews?” I in¬ 
quired. 

“Not exactly more dangerous; but I do con¬ 
sider that no form of Survey work is more dis¬ 
agreeable. Take, for instance, the giant tule- 
swamps in the lower Sacramento Valley of Cali¬ 
fornia. I had an experience in one of those 
swamps that will last me a life-time, I guess.” 

“What was that?” 

“First let me tell you what those swamps are 


190 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


like. The bush is very dense, semi-tropical; but 
where it is at its worst the water is at its best— 
less deep—so there’s a little compensation. All 
in all, the job becomes one of the most strenuous 
bushwhacking. But in the tule-grass sections— 
wow!” 

“Is that tule-grass as bad as it has been de¬ 
scribed, then?” I asked. 

“Is it bad! Say! Say! It’s never been ade¬ 
quately described in printed matter,” declared 
Brandews with impressive vigor. “Uncle Sam 
wouldn’t let that report go through the mails or 
over public or private wires. No, he wouldn’t 
—no, sir-ree! Why that tule-grass is like a field 
of wheat would seem to a very small dog. It’s 
too thick to walk through, too high to see over, 
and as stuffy as an unventilated attic under a 
mid-August sun.” 

“How do you manage to survey, then? Do 
you use stilts?” 

“Stilts! Say, you’d have to be born with stilts 
on your legs in order to be skilful enough to 
keep your balance in there! And even after 
you’ve gone to all the pains to cut a path through 
it, walking on the stubble is like walking on bayo¬ 
net points sticking up out of the ground. I’ve 
known these stubble ends to penetrate a sur¬ 
veyor’s calf-skin shoe-upper more than once, and 
give him a nasty wound. The horse wouldn’t 


THE SURVEYOR 


191 


go through it if he didn’t have to pull the buck- 
board along after him with our outfit.” 

“I should think your tripods would be too short 
for sighting,” I ventured. “You said the tule- 
grass was too high to see over.” 

“We get around that by splicing sticks on the 
legs of the tripod. To raise himself up to the 
required height for using the transit, the sur¬ 
veyor stands on the body or seat of the buck- 
board, which generally will bring his nose just 
above the surrounding grass. Of course, in his 
calculations he has to deduct the extra length of 
the tripod.” 

“You spoke about water in these swamps. 
Is it found all over them, or just in spots?” 

“For the most part they are fairly dry, ex¬ 
cept when the tide comes in at the lower part,” 
replied my informant. “Then things are w T et 
enough for sure! That brings me to my little 
tale; for it was one of those Pacific tides that 
pretty nearly got me into serious trouble. My 
comrades took it all as a huge joke; but at the 
time I was undergoing the adventure I tell you 
it had every other aspect than a funny incident 
to me, though I’ve often laughed about it since 
and forgiven the other fellows. 

“I have already told you how hard that tule- 
grass is to get through, but I might add that it 
is mighty easy stuff to get lost in, also. You 


192 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


could chase your own coat-tail for a week in one 
of those swamps and never know that you were 
going round in a circle. You can’t see a blessed 
landmark. Everything about you is a sea of 
rank grasses. But there is one good feature: 
the ground as a general thing is level,—entirely 
different than the Chippewa swamp of Minne¬ 
sota,—and fewer bench-marks are needed. 

“Well, one day we had taken a long sight, be¬ 
cause there was a sort of depression at that point 
which we wanted to delimit. I was quite a dis¬ 
tance from the plane-table, working all alone. 
Suddenly I became conscious of an unusually 
wet feeling about my feet. Looking down, I 
saw that, where a few minutes before I had been 
standing on comparatively dry ground, I was 
now over my soles in water. 

“This did not alarm me in the least. I real¬ 
ized that the tide was coming in; that it prob¬ 
ably would rise as high as my knees, as it often 
had done before, and that it would then recede. 
Somehow, like a dunce, I never thought that my 
position was much lower than it ever had been. 
Had I only recollected this fact it would have 
resulted in my beating a very hasty retreat. 

“So I stayed where I was, continuing my work 
deliberately and carefully. As I worked I 
noticed that the tide had an unwonted strong 
flow, the water swishing and gurgling about my 



THE SURVEYOR 


193 


boots with new vigor; but beyond vaguely won¬ 
dering if it could be spring-tide, I paid no fur¬ 
ther attention to it. 

“Matters went on in this way for a little while. 
Then, all at once, I noticed that the water had 
not only reached my knees, but was actually lap¬ 
ping a couple of inches higher—over my boots. 
It was the damp against my skin which aroused 
me. Still I felt no alarm. I was used to work¬ 
ing when wet; and surely the tide could not rise 
much higher. 

“I kept on at my job, unconsciously hurry¬ 
ing it a little, but not the least bit uneasy. In 
fact, in the absorption of my task, I soon lost 
all thought of the situation, and gave it no heed 
until I was finally aroused, with a start, to find 
the water clear up to my waist. 

“Then I began at last to take stock of my sur¬ 
roundings, and to speculate on the probable out¬ 
come if I stayed a little longer to finish up. 
What was the matter with that pesky tide, any¬ 
how? Had it gone clear out of its senses, to 
keep rising in this unheard-of manner? Was it 
actually trying to drown me? or just scare me? 

“As I debated the question of Flight versus 
Remain, the tide crept insistently higher, and I 
decided in favor of Flight. I concluded to let the 
other fellows, who were beyond my view, laugh 
at my precipitate return if they wished to. 



194 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


They could joke me unmercifully,—as I was 
sure they would,—but I was going to leg it for 
higher ground right away! 

“I have said that tule-grass is hard to get 
through. Now I found it, with water almost 
up to my arms, a dickens of a sight worse than 
hard! It seemed I was making the progress of 
a snail; for, in addition to myself, I was weighted 
down with my pack, and the ground was made 
so sodden that I sank in a bit at every step. 
Well, sir, I suppose that tide was coming in 
slowly, but it seemed to me I could see it creep 
up my shirt inch by inch; and I had hardly got¬ 
ten half the distance to the boys when it was up 
to my shoulders. Lucky it was I didn’t get lost 
in that maze of grass, though it did tangle in 
my feet and almost trip me. I might easily have 
suffered either catastrophe, but my shouts 
reached my party beyond and I was guided 
toward them by their answering calls. 

“ ‘Hev! Bring the buckboard here, fellows, 
or I’ll be drowned in this ornery grass!’ I 
bawled. On the higher ground where they were, 
there was no water at all, and they could not see 
that which surrounded me in the declivity. But 
of course, when I thought of it, they couldn’t 
bring the buckboard, because the horse couldn’t 
get through to me without cutting a path, and 
that was impossible with the water so high. 


THE SURVEYOR 


195 


‘Never mind,’ I countermanded; ‘stay where 
you are. I’ll make it somehow.’ 

“By now the water was up to my chin, and the 
going was harder than ever. Several times I 
stumbled enough to dip my head under and get 
eyes and mouth full of musty salt-water, but 
reached my feet again. It was the toughest 
kind of work. The long grasses scraped my 
face and entangled my feet and legs. Twice 
they matted me in such a network of sodden 
strings that I stood helplessly and frantically 
pumping my legs for several moments before I 
could snap the cordon and proceed. 

“My greatest fear was that the tide had not 
yet reached its apex. If it came a few inches 
higher, I knew that I would surely drown; for 
no man, no matter how expert a swimmer he 
might be, could sustain himself over his depth 
in that labyrinth of water-woven vegetable mat¬ 
ter. And my soaked clothes by this time were 
intolerably heavy—as weighty on my weaken¬ 
ing muscles as if made of lead. 

“But fortune favored me. The ground under 
my feet began to rise, just as I began to wonder 
how soon my body would be found and what a 
shock the news of my death would be to my dear 
old mother back in Vermont. As I emerged 
out of the declivity, my body emerged from the 
water also; and presently I had the satisfaction 


196 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


of shaking my comrades—who had come to meet 
me—by the hand. Alarm was written all over 
their bronzed faces; but as quickly they changed 
front and began to guy me. ‘Why, you dear 
little child, what a nice wade you did have!’ cried 
Smith, a big fellow three inches taller than my¬ 
self. ‘When you grow up like Mister Smith, 
the water won’t be so deep for you, dear Tod- 
dleums!’ reminded Jed Cummins. ‘Did oo dit 
nassy salty wasser in oo nice ’ittle clothes? 
Naughty, naughty wasser! ’ said Bill Cookman, 
wrinkling up his face so disgustedly that every¬ 
body roared, including myself. 

“That’s the way it is with outdoor men. 
They are the tenderest-hearted mortals to be 
found anywhere, the most loyal friends, the first 
to lend a helping hand at risk of their own lives. 
But when danger is past they are as full of fun 
as an egg is of meat, and will ‘roast’ the one they 
succor. Why? I don’t realty know. I guess 
it’s man’s way—the way he has of trying to 
make you think he isn’t tender. He’s got so 
much of it in his system that he feels sort of 
guilty, you know.” 

I stayed several days with Brandews and his 
surveyors, enjoying every minute of the time and 
gaining a far more appreciative idea of the vast 
scope of their work and the bravery and fortitude 
of the men, than I had before I investigated the 


THE SURVEYOR 


197 


subject. By day I accompanied this party or 
that, watching them perform their arduous 
duties; and by night I sat about the glowing- 
campfire listening to intensely interesting tales 
of adventure which carried my thoughts from 
plain to forest, from valley to mountain-top, and 
from swamp to arid desert. It appeared that 
there was no spot too difficult of access for these 
bold fellows, and no obstacle too great for them 
to surmount. 

A middle-aged, serious-faced man named 
Charles Hooker, who had been at one time in 
hydrographic work, charting the seacoast and 
measuring the flow of inland streams, declared 
that few people gave a thought to the immense 
value to the world of these forms of survey. 

“If it wasn’t for establishing maps of our sea- 
coasts, showing the exact location of natural ob¬ 
jects dangerous to the passage of vessels, ships 
w r ould be sunk faster than they could be made,” 
said Hooker. “These charts don’t only give 
the contours of the shores and the position of 
islands, but they show the skipper the depth of 
the sea at various points, and also indicate the 
submarine rocks and old wrecks, reefs, sandbars, 
and so on, that may prove a menace to him. 
Large navigable streams, such as the Missis¬ 
sippi, the St. Lawrence, and the Ohio Rivers, are 
likewise charted. As the river currents and 


198 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ocean currents are all the time at work changing 
the beds they sweep over, the Survey has to 
go over the same ground repeatedly in order to 
make its reports reliable.” 

“How are these depths ascertained?” I asked. 

"By sounding-lines—long steel cables at¬ 
tached to a drum on board the Government boat. 
A weight is attached to the sounding end, a 
weight heavy enough to prevent ‘drift’ and 
consequent inaccurate measurement even in the 
swiftest current. For ocean work these lines 
have to be of immense length, and it takes hours 
to pay them out and reel them in. For instance, 
in ascertaining the deepest part of the Pacific 
Ocean, we had to use practically seven miles of 
line. In recent years the United States Coast 
and Geodetic Survey has developed a method of 
verifying the depths of extensive areas, or of 
determining shoals or obstructions in those areas, 
by passing over them long drags or sweeps. 
But give me the stream-flow surveys.” 

“I never could see the importance of these,” 
I admitted. “Will you enlighten me, Mr. 
Hooker?” 

“Certainly. You see, the economic and com¬ 
mercial value of a stream is gauged largely by 
the amount of its water in proportion to its 
width. A week of wet weather makes a vast 
difference in the bulk of this water; and a dry 


THE SURVEYOR 


199 


spell makes just as much difference the other 
way. In other words, rains or melting snows 
make it rise; droughts make it fall. There’s the 
Tennessee River, which I worked on once. For 
three straight months in 1912 that river never 
flowed more than 20,000 cubic feet per second; 
yet that same year, for fifteen days in the spring, 
it tore along at the whooping rate of 360,000 
feet a second.” 

“I dare say the Mississippi and the Ohio would 
exceed even that ratio.” 

“Yes; they would, for they drain an immense 
amount of country. But a normal river ten feet 
deep, with a three-mile current in June is only 
four feet deep, with a two-mile current, in the 
month of September. By taking frequent flow 
measurements and soundings, the Government is 
able to provide methods of securing a more uni¬ 
form flow and depth throughout the year, thus 
benefitting navigation and power utilities alike. 
Government engineers deepen and straighten 
river-beds, create reservoirs to divert floodwater 
and feed it into the streams gradually instead of 
precipitately—and all because of the records 
from these surveys.” 

“How is a flow-measurement taken, Mr. 
Hooker?” 

“In several ways. When convenient, from a 
bridge. When no bridge is present, a cable is 


200 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


stretched from bank to bank, high enough so that 
its slack will keep well above the stream. On 
this cable is strung a sort of pulley-hung box 
with a small opening in its bottom. It is just far 
enough below the cable so that when the surveyor 
sits in it he can seize the cable and pull his lit¬ 
tle trolley-car along to any point of the cable he 
wishes. Once over the current he lets down a 
line bearing a bullet-shaped device called a 
current-meter. This has a small propeller 
which faces up-stream in the current and which 
rotates from the current’s force, recording within 
the exact number of such rotations during the 
minute the surveyor leaves it immersed. By a 
system of computations involving the three fac¬ 
tors, width, depth, and current-velocity, the sur¬ 
veyor is then able to arrive at a very exact idea 
of the amount of water rushing past a given 
point of this river within one minute’s time. 
Once, when I was taking a record in the ‘bos’n’s 
chair,’ as it is called, my cable was stretched 
from high bluffs on the Allegheny that were 
close to a mile apart, and it took me two hours 
to work out into position. Just as I was think¬ 
ing about the long up-grade pull back, and 
dreading it, something happened that caused me 
to return to land in an entirely different manner 
than I had planned.” 

Hooker paused to chuckle deeply at the recol- 


THE SURVEYOR 


201 


lection his words brought up. Several of the 
other surveyors grinned. They could surmise 
what was coming, but I could not. 

“It was this way,” resumed Hooker. “One 
of the metal straps connecting the front end of 
the bos’n’s chair to the forward pulley gave way. 
That let the box down in front so suddenlv that 
I was thrown completely out and pitched head¬ 
long into the river below. I don’t know how 
many times I turned over, as the Government 
hadn’t asked me to record my own gymnastics, 
but I do know that I hit flat on my belly in 
approved swimming position. And I swam— 
believe me, boys! I swam. It was a long way 
ashore, in swift, cold water at that, and by the 
time I struck shore I knew a whole lot about 

that current that scientific figures could never 

• >> 
give. 

It was Carter Beekmart, a former mine-sur¬ 
veyor, who told me of how one day he had been 
running levels in an old coal-mine in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, preparatory to the construction of a new 
tram-railway, when a fall of slate caught him by 
the leg, imprisoning him for several hours and 
killing his rodman. It was George Paquette 
who told how, in a survey of Death Valley, he 
and two comrades had become unconscious from 
thirst, to be miraculously saved by an old Indian 
and his half-breed son, who chanced upon them. 


202 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


And it was Jack Nisson who told me how, while 
he was up in Alaska on a survey of Mt. Mc¬ 
Kinley he had faced the icy blasts of a winter 
gale for days at a time, working out fine calcu¬ 
lations with his party, with the thermometer reg¬ 
istering sixty degrees below zero. 

There is no need for me to say more in an at¬ 
tempt to prove that surveying is heroes’ work. 
I am sure you will agree with me that even if 
they do not have hairbreadth escapes they surely 
meet obstacles in the every-day course of their 
rugged duties, which call for no small outlay of 
resourcefulness and no little display of grit. 


VI 


THE EXPLORER 1 

I FIR ST met Dillon Wallace at Culver Mil¬ 
itary Academy last summer. Here I 
found the well-known writer of boys’ books, 
veteran outdoor man, companion of Leonidas 
Hubbard, Jr., in that fateful expedition up into 
the wilds of Labrador, and leader of two later 
expeditions, acting as supervisor of woodcraft to 
four hundred khaki-clad youngsters. When I 
arrived a bunch were just starting out on a three- 
days’ hike. Happy? Enthusiastic? You never 
saw more enthusiastic boys! 

“Come along with us,” invited their genial, 
sun-tanned leader, still a robust, active man in 
spite of his arduous experiences of younger 
days. And when I noticed the friendly looks in 
the bright faces of his gay troopers—a sort of 
“Sure; we want you too,”—depend upon it, I 
needed no further pressing. 

That hike will stick long by me. It would 
have been a good sticker with just those jolly 

l Quotations in this chapter from “The Lure of the Labrador 
Wild,” by Dillon Wallace, are made by permission of the author 
and of the publishers, Fleming H. Revell Company. 

203 


204 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


boys along; but when you stop to think that the 
expedition was headed by such a popular and 
expert woodsman as Dillon Wallace, it is no 
wonder that it made such deep dents in my 
memory. Oh, the bully comradeship of that 
march through field, along by-path, down road, 
and into forest! How many boys exclaimed 
“Ah-h!” and “Oh-h!” and “Gee!” as the famous 
explorer pointed out to them interesting objects 
they would have passed by unnoticed. And the 
bully comradeship of the cheerful, crackling 
camp-fire at night, as we gathered about in a big 
circle, with the deep shadows of the brooding 
timber at our backs, and exchanged stirring 
story for stirring story, rollicking joke for rol¬ 
licking joke! 

Of course Dillon Wallace was the king-bee 
story-teller upon these occasions. He always 
had to start the ball a-rolling; we would keep it 
going a while, and then we never failed to insist 
upon his giving it the last spin—a mighty 
strong one—before we had our good-night song 
and wrapped ourselves in our blankets a la In¬ 
dian. 

Thus it was that, on one of those three nights 
before the open blaze, I prevailed upon Mr. 
Wallace to tell us the story of his thrilling trip 
into the heart of Labrador with Leonidas Hub¬ 
bard—poor, brave-hearted, unfortunate Hub- 



THE EXPLORER 205 

bard, who never emerged alive from that terrible 
land. 

“It was back in 1900 that I first met Hub¬ 
bard,” said Wallace reminiscently. He was a 
reporter on a New York daily paper and I was 
practicing law. Our mutual love for the out- 
of-doors drew us together. Later, when he be¬ 
came connected with a magazine devoted to out¬ 
door life, we became hiking and camping com¬ 
panions on frequent week-end trips. On one of 
these occasions, in late November, 1901, we were 
enjoying our evening camp-fire when Hubbard 
startled me with the question: ‘How would 
you like to go to Labrador with me?’ Had he 
suggested going to the South Pole I could not 
have been more astonished. I just stared at 
first. Then I managed to blurt out: ‘Why 1 — 
why do you wish to go there?’ 

“ ‘Man,’ he replied, ‘don’t you realize it’s 
about the only part of the continent that hasn’t 
been explored? There isn’t much more known 
now of the interior of Labrador than when Cabot 
discovered the coast more than four hun¬ 
dred years ago. Think of it, Wallace,’ he went 
on excitedly,—‘a great unknown land right near 
at home, as wild and primitive to-day as it has 
always been! I want to see it! I want to get 
into a really wild country! I want to have some 
of the soul-stirring experiences of the old fel- 


206 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


lows who once explored and opened up our own 
wonderful country! ’ 

“Then he sat down, a bit more calm, and be¬ 
gan to unfold to me his plan, then vague and in 
the rough, of exploring a part of the unknown 
eastern interior of the Labrador peninsula. Of 
trips such as this he had been dreaming since 
childhood. As a mere boy on his father’s farm 
in Michigan, he had lain for hours out under the 
trees in the orchard, poring over a map of Can¬ 
ada and making imaginary journeys into unex¬ 
plored regions. Boone and Crockett were his 
heroes, likewise the more ancient Cortez and De 
Soto. They accompanied him in spirit when he 
poked about in the nearby woods; they goaded 
him into stealing farther away for pilgrimages 
lasting two or three days at a time—a lone little 
camper among the squirrels and birds, trees 
and grasses. 

“He resolved that some day he should head an 
exploring expedition of his own. This resolu¬ 
tion he never forgot, neither while a student nor 
while serving as a newspaper man in Detroit and 
New York. Later, while on the staff of Outing 
Magazine, he wrote special articles. In this 
work he visited the Hudson Bay region, and 
once penetrated to the winter hunting-grounds 
of the Mountaineer Indians, north of Lake St. 
John, in southern Labrador. But these trips 



THE EXPLORER 


207 


failed to satisfy him. On the contrary he be¬ 
gan to nurse an intense longing to go into a 
region where no white man had preceded him. 

“ ‘You see, Wallace, it’s just this way,’ he said 
to me that day. ‘When a fellow starts on a 
long trail he’s never willing to quit. It will be 
the same with you if you go with me to Labrador. 
You’ll say each trip will be the last, but when 
you come home you’ll hear the voice of the wil¬ 
derness calling you back. I thought my Lake 
St. John trip was something wonderful, but 
it only increased my longing for bigger discov¬ 
eries.’ 

“My friend’s enthusiasm was contagious. 
Born of a roving stock myself, I found my pulse 
jumping wildly the longer he talked; and that 
night before I lay down to sleep, I said, ‘Hub¬ 
bard, I’ll go with you.’ And so the thing was 
settled. That was how Hubbard’s expedition 
got its first real thrust. 

“But more than a year passed before Hubbard 
could make arrangements to get away. Prob¬ 
ably he would not have been so lucky even then 
except for the fact that in the meantime he had 
been promoted to the position of associate-editor 
of Outing. Caspar Whitney was then the maga¬ 
zine’s editor-in-chief, and such was his confidence 
in Hubbard and sympathy for his ambition, that 
the magazine undertook to finance the expedi- 


208 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


tion. Through it the world would gain new and 
important facts of geography. Do you blame 
us for feeling proud of our responsibility?—for 
feeling elated at the prospect of the alluring 
discovery which seemed awaiting us? 

“Hubbard hoped to reach the George River, 
Labrador, in season to meet the Nascaupee In¬ 
dians, who, according to an old tradition, gather 
each year on its banks, in late August or early 
September, to spear the herds of caribou which 
migrate at that time, passing eastward to the 
seacoast. He wished to get a good story of 
this annual great hunt, also pictures of the In¬ 
dians attacking the caribou as they swam the 
wide stream, and stated that before he returned 
he would like to give some study to the Nascau- 
pees, who are the most primitive people on the 
North American continent. His first objective 
before crossing the northern divide and attempt¬ 
ing to locate the headwaters of the George River 
was to be Lake Michikamau (Big Water), save 
Lake Mistasinni in the south this is the largest 
body of water in Labrador, possessing a length 
of about ninety miles and a varying width of 
from six to twenty-five miles. In attaining 
Lake Michikamau he planned to ascend the Nas¬ 
caupee River at that time incorrectly mapped as 
the ‘Northwest.’ 

“I have called this country unknown. It is 


THE EXPLORER 


209 


true that, in the winter of 1838, John MacLean, 
then the agent of the Hudson Bay Company at 
Fort Chimo, passed through a portion of the re¬ 
gion while making a dog-sled journey from his 
post to Northwest River Post. The record he 
left, however, is very incomplete. In fact, his 
exact route is by no means certain. His suffer¬ 
ings were extreme. He and his party had to eat 
their dogs to save themselves from starvation, 
and even then they would have perished had it 
not been for an Indian who reached the Post 
ahead of them and sent back rescuers. 

“All preparations made, we left New York, 
June 20, 1903, on the Red Cross Line steamer 
Silvia . A little knot of friends had gathered on 
the Brooklyn pier to see us off, and we waved 
handkerchiefs to them as long as they were vis¬ 
ible. 

“Our party consisted of Hubbard, myself, 
Hubbard’s wife, and George Elson. Elson was 
a half-breed Cree Indian, from down on James 
Bay, who had been sent by one of Hubbard’s 
friends to accompany us as packer; and let me 
say right here that a more devoted fellow for 
the purpose no man could have found. He was 
a jolly, willing comrade. 

“We were all very light-hearted and gay that 
morning; it was a relief to be off at last, and to 
have the worry of preparation over. Perhaps 


210 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Mrs. Hubbard was the most sober. At Rattle 
Harbor, the first point we would touch on the 
Labrador coast, she was to leave us, thence to re¬ 
turn home and await word from her husband, 
and his final return. As we drew nearer, it 
seemed she became more thoughtful. Had she 
a presentiment of misfortune for the expedition? 
If so she tried to hide it behind a cheerful face. 

“June 24th was my birthday. We lay at Hal¬ 
ifax. Early that morning Hubbard came into 
my stateroom with a pair of camp blankets which 
my sisters had commissioned him to present to 
me. The kind-hearted conspirator had told me, 
in starting out, that he had enough blankets 
in his outfit and to take none with me. How 
strangely things sometimes turn out! Those 
blankets which Hubbard had withheld in order 
that I might be agreeably surprised, were des¬ 
tined to fulfil an office of the gravest importance 
a little later on, away up there in the Labrador¬ 
ean wilds, as you shall see. 

“At St. Johns we purchased provisions for our 
trip, and carefully packed them, later tranfer- 
ring to the steamer Virginia Lake . When the 
heavy veil of grey fog lifted, we saw many ice¬ 
bergs and floes floating in the water around our 
vessel. 

“It was on the Fourth of July that we made 
out the first bleak, rockbound outlines of Lab- 


THE EXPLORER 


211 


rador. In all the world there is no coast so 
barren, so desolate, so brutally inhospitable 
in appearance as this land reaching from 
Cape Charles, at the Strait of Belle Isle on 
the south, to Cape Chidley on the north. Along 
those eight hundred miles it is a constant 
succession of bare rocks scoured clean and 
smooth by the ice and storms of centuries. 
Not a green thing is to be seen, save now and 
then a bunch of stunted shrubs which have 
found a scanty foothold in some cleft or shel¬ 
tered nook. It is a fog-ridden, dangerous coast, 
with never a lighthouse at that time, or signal of 
any kind at any point. 

“Next day Mrs. Hubbard stepped into the 
small boat. Before us lay Battle Harbor, an un¬ 
inviting, small collection of wooden buildings, 
with a few dingy-looking fishing craft in the bay. 
It was a most dismal time and place for her 
to part from her husband. Not yet six o’clock, 
we had had no breakfast. A cold, drizzling 
rain was falling. Patches of snow clung to 
the rocks along shore. Not an inhabitant of the 
town showed himself. But she was brave—very, 
very brave. Now that the last moment had 
come, she actually smiled, although I know now 
how hard the parting must have been. As for 
Hubbard, I noticed his voice trembled as he 
kissed her and said good-bye. Up there in the 



212 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


dark wilderness where no white man had ever 
penetrated he talked with me of that parting. 

“At Indian Harbor we set our first foot upon 
Labradorean land. The afternoon was spent in 
assorting and repacking our outfit, which con¬ 
sisted of the following items: One 18-foot can¬ 
vas-covered canoe, weighing eighty pounds; one 
canoe type of tent, 6^ x 7 feet, made of bal¬ 
loon silk and waterproofed; three pairs of blank¬ 
ets and one single blanket; two tarpaulins, five 
waterproof canvas bags; one dozen small water¬ 
proof bags of balloon silk for note-books; 
two .45-70 Winchester rifles; two 10-inch bar¬ 
rel .22-calibre pistols for shooting grouse and 
other small game; 200 rounds of .45-70 and 1,000 
rounds of .22-calibre cartridges; one 3^ x 4^ 
inch pocket-folding camera, and thirty rolls of 
films in water-tight boxes; one sextant and arti¬ 
ficial horizon; two compasses, our cooking uten¬ 
sils, and a change of shirts, socks, and under¬ 
wear. Our food supply comprised 120 pounds 
of flour, 25 pounds of bacon, 13 pounds of lard, 
20 pounds of flavored pea meal, 10 pounds of 
tea, 5 pounds of coffee, 8 pounds of hardtack, 
10 pounds of milk-powder, 10 pounds of rice, 
8 pounds of dried apples, 7 pounds of salt, 7 
pounds of tobacco, 9 pounds of plain pea flour, 
and 30 pounds of sugar. This outfit, you will 
recall, was designed for three men—Hubbard, 


THE EXPLORER 


213 


George, and myself. It was designed as an 
emergency ration. We hoped to draw our main 
supply from the game and fish of the country 
itself. 

“It was nine o’clock on Wednesday morning, 
July 15, that we left the trading post and made 
the start into the interior. Our canoe, laden 
deep with our belongings, shot through the water 
under the impulse of our concerted strokes. Be¬ 
hind we left a group of swarthy natives and the 
commander of the post. All were grave and 
sceptical, shaking their heads at our light- 
hearted good-byes. Their long faces, however, 
could not dampen our high spirits in the least. 

“Crisp, and as pure as crystal, the air was won¬ 
derfully exhilarating. The fir trees and shrubs 
gave out a delicious fragrance, and their wav¬ 
ing tops seemed gayly to beckon us on. The 
sky was a deep, rich blue. Here and there a 
feathery cloud covered it ghostily. The bright 
sunlight made our hearts bound,—all our ener¬ 
gies, mental and physical, leaped burstingly up¬ 
ward and outward. 

“From Northwest River we went up through 
the strait into Little Lake, thence to the 
rapid where the waters of Grand Lake pour out. 
Through this rapid we had to wade and pull our 
canoe along by the tracking-line. Then we were 
in Grand Lake, its glistening waters stretching 


214 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


fifty miles northwest. That night we camped in 
the rain, but the next morning was clear. 

“That day we started to ascend the Susan 
River. We had gone only a short way when 
the stream became so shallow and swift that once 
more we had to jump out and haul the canoe 
through the churning waters. Where the rocks 
were too bad, we were forced to portage. To add 
to our troubles we were beset by swarms of small 
gnats, which got into our nostrils, our eyes, our 
ears, and even our mouths, whenever we opened 
them to say a word. Our southern mosqui¬ 
toes are tame beside them. It w T as no time be¬ 
fore our faces felt as if they had been boiled. 
Streaks of blood, where the vicious little devils 
had bitten us, lay smeared wherever skin showed. 
Fortunately, our attackers, no larger than a pin¬ 
head, but with a nip like the thrust of a red-hot 
iron, departed with the approach of twilight, and 
we breathed easier. 

“For some hours it had been raining. All that 
night it poured, but we were reasonably com¬ 
fortable under our waterproof covers. At noon 
next day the thermometer registered 90 de¬ 
grees in the shade. Always at sunset, however, 
the temperature would drop with startling sud¬ 
denness. It was nothing unusual that summer 
for us to witness a variation of from fifty to 
sixty degrees in a single day. Thus we seemed 


THE EXPLORER 


215 


to be in the heart of the Tropics at midday, and 
in the heart of the Arctic Circle in the evening. 

“On our first Sunday out, we quit traveling, 
and rested. Hubbard said he thought the Lord’s 
day ought to be observed up there in the wilds 
just as much as at home in civilization; and 
George couldn’t quite understand why we should 
not rest also when it rained. 

“All day Thursday, July 23d, Hubbard lay in 
the tent sick. For several days we had been 
portaging through gullies and swamps, followed 
by an army of Labrador gnats, and Hubbard’s 
system had absorbed so much of their villainous 
poison that he could not keep going. The fact 
is, George and I were half-sick from the same 
cause. Our faces, hands, and wrists were sore 
and badly swollen from countless bites. My 
cheeks were so puffed out that I could scarcely 
see. 

“That day George and I scouted for trails, 
leaving Hubbard in the tent. We took separate 
routes. In the afternoon, with the sun obscured 
by clouds, I attempted to get my direction with 
the compass, but the needle would not respond. 
A grouse fluttered up before me, and I brought 
it down with my pistol. This fowl, thought I, 
would prove a choice morsel for the sick man’s 
supper. I then started to make a short cut 
through the swamp toward camp, but in some 


216 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


manner lost my bearings, and at dusk found my¬ 
self on the shores of a lake I had never seen be¬ 
fore. 

“Knowing it was best to keep calm, right where 
I was, until better light might assist me in get¬ 
ting back on the trail, I lay down beside a log 
and went to sleep. At dawn I felt a lot better. 
I built a fire, cooked a cup of porridge, and re¬ 
paired my defective compass. With new con¬ 
fidence, I started out, and by nightfall had safely 
reached camp, to find Hubbard greatly worried 
and George out looking for me. Not until Sat¬ 
urday was Hubbard well enough to go on, and 
then we resumed our journey in the midst of a 
drizzling rain. 

“Sunday we rested again. Our progress the 
next three days was the old story of hard track¬ 
ing in the river and difficult portaging. The 
weather was cloudy, and a chill wind blew. This 
slow work gave Hubbard serious concern, for the 
condition of our larder and wardrobe was not 
reassuring. Our bacon and sugar were going 
fast. Fish had become an absolute necessity, 
and our catches had been alarmingly small, as we 
had been unable to procure a net at the trading- 
posts and the fish did not seem to respond well 
to bait. 

“There was also a lamentable lack of game. 
Far behind we seemed to have heard the chat- 


THE EXPLORER 


217 


ter of the last red squirrel, to have seen the last 
bear signs, and to have inspected the last tree 
whose lacerated bark showed the lunching stop 
of a porcupine. It is true there were caribou 
tracks aplenty, but seldom a fresh one. Only 
a solitary rabbit had crossed our path since 
we entered the valley. 

“Our moccasins were breaking through the 
bottoms. This was a grave matter; for while 
George had an extra pair, Hubbard and I had 
only those we wore. Then, too, Hubbard’s feet 
were very sore. Two of his toe-nails came off on 
Wednesday night; and a wide crack, which must 
have made walking very painful, appeared in 
one of his heels. I bandaged the foot up with 
cotton strips we had brought for cleaning the 
rifles, and over this covering we wound elec¬ 
trician’s tape as a retainer. 

“Thursday we came to a good-sized stream 
flowing into the Susan. Hubbard sent George 
on a scouting trip up this branch. A half-mile 
up he found a blaze crossing the waters, which 
he pronounced a winter blaze made by trappers, 
as the cuttings were high up on the spruces and 
freshly made. Further on, he came upon the 
rotting poles of an Indian wigwam. This dis¬ 
covery made Hubbard very happy; he accepted 
it as evidence that the stream was the river 
mapped as the ‘Northwest,’ and if so, it was the 


218 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Indian route to Lake Michikamau, our first ob¬ 
jective. 

“We found it a much deeper stream than the 
Susan, and as we could paddle for the first time 
since leaving Grand Lake, we made quite good 
progress. Every day for awhile we caught some 
fine trout, which not only replenished our daily 
food supply, but added to our reserve as the 
larger fish were split and dried. When we 
halted for any purpose, Hubbard always 
whipped the stream. He was a tireless and skil¬ 
ful fisherman. He would keep at it long after 
I had become discouraged; would catch fish in 
pools where they positively refused to rise for me. 

“One day Hubbard saw four wild-geese swim¬ 
ming slowly down stream. He called our at¬ 
tention to them, and we hid behind a little bank. 
Hubbard and George fired simultaneously at the 
leader of the geese, and if ever a goose had his 
‘goose cooked’ that one did! Both bullets hit 
him in a vital spot. Then they fired again, as 
the alarmed fowls started to fly, and two more 
nice plump fellows came down into the water. 
How we shouted! Our hats were thrown up in 
the air, we were so happy at the prospect of 
the first meat of this sort since entering the 
country. 

“That night George built a big fire—much 
bigger than usual. At the back he placed the 



THE EXPLORER 


219 


largest green log he could find; and suspended 
from a green pole stretched across two crotched 
uprights, he placed one of the geese, all nicely 
cleaned and picked and washed. Through its 
legs and body, at the wings, he had stuck a 
wooden pin, also placed a dish just below to 
catch the gravy. And now, as the hot coals of 
the fire got in their work, George from time to 
time gave the fowl a gentle twirl, thus evenly 
broiling all sides. When he saw, by sticking a 
sliver in the tender flesh, that the lower portion 
was done, he turned the bird upside down. 

“ ‘Smells like a Christmas goose when one goes 
through the kitchen, just before mother puts it 
on the table,’ commented Hubbard, cheerfully. 

“‘Um-m-m!’ I agreed. And George’s eyes 
snapped his delight, while the corners of his 
mouth stretched inward and upward amazingly. 

“A little later, with his sharp teeth ripping 
apart one leg of the succulent game, George al¬ 
lowed that he would rather have goose than car¬ 
ibou, and then proceeded to tell us some interest¬ 
ing stories of goose hunts ‘down the bay’ and of 
divers big Indian feasts in which he had partici¬ 
pated. 

“The fire died down until nothing remained 
save a heap of glowing embers. For a long time 
we sat in the darkness, over an extra pot of tea. 
At first, silence; and then, while George and I 


220 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


puffed complacently away at our pipes, Hub¬ 
bard, who never smoked, entertained us with 
extracts from Kipling, of whom he was a strong 
admirer. We listened with a relish. 

“After a while silence enwrapped us once 
more. The Northern Lights flashed and swept 
in fantastic shapes across the heavens, illuminat¬ 
ing the fir tops in the valley and making the 
white lichens gleam like pencils of mother-of- 
pearl on the hill above us. We thought of the 
big lake ahead, and somehow had a happy feel¬ 
ing that we would soon reach old Michikamau. 
It was long past midnight when we rolled up in 
our blankets on our fragrant beds of spruce 
boughs, and allowed the murmuring waters of the 
creek below to lull us to sleep. 

“About noon on August 5th, we reached a 
lake which proved to be the headwaters of the 
stream which we had named Goose Creek. 
From the utter absence of either trapper’s 
blazes or cuttings, we concluded that we were 
now well beyond the zone of the white man’s 
travels. After a stop of two days, we started 
up a wide river whose name we did not know, 
but which I afterward learned was the Beaver. 

“Our clothing was rapidly going to pieces. 
Hubbard’s right trousers leg was torn open and 
flapped annoyingly at every step until he man¬ 
aged to gather it together with some twine. 



© Fleming H. Revell Co. 


WALLACE ON A PORTAGE 








THE EXPLORER 


221 


George and I were also very ragged. Our hair 
was so unkempt and our beards so luxuriant and 
carefree that we would have been taken for 
tramps had we been in civilization. That night 
in camp I cut up my canvas leggings and used 
pieces of them to rebottom my dilapidated moc¬ 
casins. 

“For the next three days and nights it rained 
almost continuously. On August 13th, Hubbard 
killed a caribou with the Winchester, and we had 
to remain in camp four days to cut up the 
animal and let the meat dry. The weather grew 
colder, and we started off in the canoe with the 
river’s edge coated with a thin film of ice. As 
we had had no bread for several days, we sipped 
hot tea and munched caribou meat. 

The source of the Beaver River proved to be 
a large lake. At this point our course was 
blocked by a range of grim mountains. Through 
a deep gulch, which formed a pass through the 
mountains, we portaged our outfit and finally 
into a lake that we named “Disappointment.” 
Here began a forty-mile carry overland through 
the wilderness, relieved only by a few small 
lakes. 

“After many tiresome portages in the hilly 
country which we soon after entered; after many 
meagre meals of our rapidly diminishing rations, 
fortunately made elastic by slim catches of trout 


222 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


and basinfuls of blueberries, we at last had a 
distant view from a hilltop of Lake Michikamau, 
on September 3, though we were never to reach 
the lake itself. In our great joy we fairly 
hugged one another, capering about and shout¬ 
ing like children looking at their first Christmas- 
tree. 

“That day we killed a rabbit and some ptarmi¬ 
gans, also caught a couple of good-sized namay- 
cushes by trolling in a large lake upon whose 
shores we were camping. ‘You see, boys,’ said 
Hubbard, reverently, ‘God always seems to give 
us food when we stand in most need of it.’ 

“Early the next morning we were awakened 
by a northeast gale which every moment threat¬ 
ened to carry our tent from its fastenings on the 
little island where we were encamped. As we 
peered through the flap, gusts of rain and snow 
beat in our faces. The wind was also playing 
high jinks with the lake; it was white with foam 
out in the middle, while alongshore the waves 
were sending geysers of spray up against the 
rocks. 

“We occupied the day in talking and mend¬ 
ing our garments. It was still blowing on the 
following morning, Sunday. The afternoon was 
spent in reading from the Bible. George, whose 
religious training had all been gained in a mis¬ 
sion of the Anglican Church on James Bay, lis- 


THE EXPLORER 


223 


tened with marked attention. His contribution, 
when we were through, came in the form of 
gloomy stories of Indians who had starved to 
death, or who had come very near to starving to 
death. He told how weak he was getting him¬ 
self—of how he had heard big northern loons 
cry at night farther back on the trail—which 
cries, he said, the Indians regarded as sure signs 
of coming calamity. At the same time he was 
cheerful and courageous, never suggesting such 
a thing as turning back. To me, at least, his 
state of mind was very interesting. Apparently 
two natures were at war within him. One—the 
Indian’s—was haunted by superstitious fears. 
The other—the white man’s—rejected these 
fears and invariably conquered them. In other 
words, the Indian in him made him panicky; 
but the white man in him held him fast. And in 
seeing him master his superstitious side, I could 
not do otherwise than admire him. 

“I observed now a great change in Hubbard. 
Heretofore the work he did had seemed almost 
wholly to occupy his thoughts. Now he craved 
companionship. Instead of turning in to sleep 
ahead of George and me, he took to sitting up 
and talking with me about his home and his wife 
long after George had rolled up in his blan¬ 
ket. He talked, too, of his mother and sister, 
of the old Michigan farm where he was born*and 





224 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


reared, of his early struggles in New York as a 
newspaper man. Undoubtedly the young fel¬ 
low was beginning to suffer the pangs of home¬ 
sickness. It was not to be wondered at. Hub¬ 
bard, though undemonstrative, had one of the 
gentlest, tenderest, most affectionate natures I 
ever saw in a man. Home meant a lot to him. 

“The gale continued Monday. Again we 
were windbound. A little thin bacon soup 
served us for breakfast. To stave off our hun¬ 
ger, we went to sleep again. Later in the day 
George went out and tried to shoot something, 
but came back empty-handed and disconsolate. 
For dinner we ate stewed cranberries. The acid 
from the unsweetened fruit made our mouths 
sore, but it was better than not eating at all. 

“Tuesday brought continued wind and sleet. 
We made an inventory of the food we were 
hoarding for an emergency. This disclosed two 
pounds of flour, eighteen pounds of pea meal, a 
pint of rice, and a half-pound of bacon. 
George’s memory then harked up another story 
of Indians who had starved in the wilds of the 
Northwest, and after that we sat silent for a long 
while, staring blankly at the blazing logs. Sud¬ 
denly, amid the howling of the wind outside, 
Hubbard, gaunt and haggard, arose, paced ner¬ 
vously up and down a few times, and said: 
‘Boys, what do you say to turning back?’ 


THE EXPLORER 


225 


“For a moment I was dazed at the thought— 
at the idea of turning back without ever seeing 
the Indians or the caribou-hunt. But when I 
took another look at Hubbard and saw how thin 
he had become, how hollow his cheeks were, I 
agreed that we should take the back-trail. 
George, in the white man’s mood again, was in¬ 
different. 

“ ‘Very well, then,’ declared Hubbard quietly. 
‘Back it is.’ 

“I knew it had required a lot of courage for 
Hubbard to acknowledge himself defeated in his 
purpose. He was not the kind to give up an 
undertaking until the last ditch. The fact is, I 
believe he was thinking far more of George and 
me when he proposed retracing steps than he 
was of himself. 

“Well, anyhow, we fell to discussing plans for 
the return. We all agreed that we would leave 
at the first opportunity. But that opportunity 
was slow coming. For the next several days the 
northeast gale kept howling. By Wednesday, 
September 16th, we ate the last bit of bacon and 
the last handful of rice. Then we sallied forth, 
making up our minds to face the elements rather 
than starve like rats in a hole. Next day 
George succeeded in shooting a Canada jay, or 
‘whiskey-jack,’ with his pistol. Although this is 
a carrion bird, we were so hungry that we ate it, 


226 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


bones and all, stewed in a big pot of water with 
two or three spoonfuls of flour and an equal 
amount of pea meal. 

“That was our breakfast. We had no lunch¬ 
eon; for it was not until night that we managed 
to catch a couple of namaycush fish of fair size. 

“On Friday we ate the last of our flour. It 
was used to thicken the water in which we boiled 
some entrails, a namaycush head, and two small 
trout. On Saturday the mercury dropped to 
32 degrees. So cold was it that night that we 
made a bed in common, in order that the heat of 
our bodies could be concentrated and equally 
distributed. The following day the squalls con¬ 
tinued. In desperation we broke camp, and 
tried to cross the lake with our outfit, but the bit¬ 
ter wind soon drove us back to shelter, although 
we caught a namaycush and found some cran¬ 
berries on an island. 

“A little later I was attacked with vomiting 
and faintness. When I tried to swing an axe, 
in cutting up firew r ood, I reeled and all but lost 
consciousness. 

“Late in the afternoon the storm subsided, 
and w r e made another attempt to escape from 
our prison. Oh, the relief of really paddling 
again—paddling toward home! For nearly two 
weeks we had been held on that dreadful, bar¬ 
ren lake, fighting the pangs of an increasing 


THE EXPLORER 227 

hunger while we shivered in our wet rags. 
Home! It was a magic word. 

“But little did we realize the hardships we 
were yet to encounter. Compared to those of 
the near future, the rigors of the past were as 
mere trifles. 

“When we reached the mainland, we began 
a tedious forty-mile portage we had made in 
coming. It was a depressing start. Rain be¬ 
gan to fall once more, just as we were well un¬ 
der way. At the start of that day’s journey 
we made the disquieting discovery that we had 
reached that stage of physical weakening where 
none of us could carry the canoe alone. De¬ 
cidedly we were not the same men who had set 
out so blithely from the post eight weeks be¬ 
fore. As for myself, I had shortened my belt 
thirteen holes, which represented as many inches! 

“Now it became the custom for George and 
me to go ahead with the canoe for a mile or so, 
while Hubbard brought forward in turn each 
of the three packs for an eighth of a mile. Then 
George and I would return to him. Taking a 
pack each, we would advance to the place where 
the canoe had been left. Although our packs 
were much lighter than when we took the out- 
trail, our progress was slower because of our 
lack of strength. 

“During the second day of our portage, we 


228 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


caught no fish and killed no game. Hubbard 
suffered an attack of vomiting before nightfall, 
and when we made camp we were all miserable 
and thoroughly soaked, though still buoyed up 
by the thought that we were going home. 

“The following day I too had a spell of stom¬ 
ach nauseation. Hungry as I was I could not 
eat of the mossberries and pea meal partaken 
by my comrades that night. I felt very miser¬ 
able, but not more so than Hubbard and 
George. Although the rain ceased falling, we 
were silent and depressed until the heat from 
the cheerful fire began to dry out our rags and 
loosen our tongues. 

“We awoke on the 24th to find six inches of 
snow on the ground, and the storm still raging, 
with the temperature down to 28. But we con¬ 
tinued our portage, breasting every hardship. 
That morning George, who was a famous goose- 
hunter, brought down two fine, plump fellows 
with the Winchester. How we shouted with joy! 
What a feast we had! But we were not waste¬ 
ful in our luxury, for we scorched the bones 
and saved them against a ‘rainy’ day, in true dog 
fashion. 

“Our clothing still clung to us in some miracu¬ 
lous fashion—why, we could not see, with all its 
rents and holes. The bottoms of our moccasins 
were so hopelessly gone that we had wrapped 



© Fleming H. Revell Co. 

HUBBARD RAGGED AND ALMOST BAREFOOTED 


Wi 















( 


THE EXPLORER 229 

our feet in rags tied in place with fishline. Our 
hair stuck through tears in our shapeless felt 
hats in a ridiculous manner. More than once, 
when feeling particularly blue, we relieved the 
situation by making sarcastic remarks about each 
other’s appearance. I told Hubbard his wife 
would run from him in terror when she should 
see him again. Hubbard declared my own dog 
at home would attack me upon my return. 
George was frank enough to state that should we 
meet Indians they would surely take us for the 
three spirits of the blizzard-god. The truth is, 
we were more frightful-looking than we could 
picture. Long exposure to sun and storm, not 
to say the smoke of countless campfires, had 
covered our faces with a deep coat of muddy 
brown; our eyes were sunken deep in their 
sockets, and burned feverishly; our lips were 
drawn to thin lines over our teeth; the skins of 
our hands and faces were stretched tight over the 
bones, like parchment over a knobby framework; 
we were almost as thin, and close to the color of, 
the mummies one sees in museums. 

“Two things soon became apparent after our 
struggle back to the trading-post was resumed. 
One was, that winter was fast closing in upon 
us; the other was, that Hubbard’s physical con¬ 
dition was such as might well cause us the grav¬ 
est concern. 


230 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


“On Tuesday, September 29th, Hubbard was 
attacked with diarrhoea for the second time 
within a few days. In attempting to carry one 
end of the canoe up the steep bank, he sank 
down in exhaustion, saying, ‘It’s no use, boys; 
I think I’ll have to take a little rest.’ 

“We built a roaring log fire for him, gave 
him the blankets, and settled down until he 
should feel strong enough to go on. The inci¬ 
dent affected him deeply. He blamed himself 
for the delay, declaring that but for him our food 
supply would be lasting longer and we would 
be getting nearer relief. He said that resting 
and eating this way was like a shipwrecked sailor 
cutting chunks of cork out of his life-preserver 
and throwing them away one by one. In our 
hearts we knew this to be true, but of course we 
dared not say so, and tried our best to laugh our 
comrade out of his gloom, although to little avail. 

“The next morning Hubbard said he was con¬ 
siderably better. His spirits, too, were more 
like his old self. We resumed the trail. After 
a short march, we camped in a place where we 
had built a fire on the outward trip. Here we 
discovered a treasure; namely, the bones of a 
caribou hoof which we had used in making soup 
at that time. We seized upon the bones eagerly, 
put them in the fire, and hungrily licked the 
grease off them as it was drawn out by the heat. 


THE EXPLORER 


231 


Then we cracked the bones, and with gusto de¬ 
voured the bit of grease we found inside. 

“October began with tremendous blasts and 
gales. The sleet stung our faces so much that 
frequently we had to seek refuge in the lee of 
bushes and trees. A few trout fell to our lines— 
just enough to keep life in our bodies and cour¬ 
age screwed up to a going-on point. 

“I remember that while we sat by the fire one 
of those evenings George produced from a tat¬ 
tered pocket a New York Central time-table on 
which was printed a buffet-lunch menu. He 
handed it to Hubbard, jocosely requesting him 
to give his order for the morning’s breakfast so 
that he (George) might have it prepared in good 
season. Hubbard smiled wanly, and good-hu¬ 
moredly said: ‘Give me a glass of milk, some 
graham gems, marmalade, oatmeal and cream, 
a jelly omelette, a sirloin steak, lyonnaise po¬ 
tatoes, Vienna rolls, and a pot of chocolate. 
And you might bring me also,’ he added, in sud¬ 
den afterthought, ‘a plate of griddle cakes, 
smoking hot, and a pitcher of maple syrup.’ 
Somehow George got the order mixed, I guess, 
for next morning we had the same old soup 
made from cracked caribou bones. 

“Day after day we faced ill weather and long, 
rough portages, which taxed our waning 
strength to the limit. Game was exceedingly 


232 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


scarce, although we did kill a couple of ducks 
in the first little lake north of Lake Disappoint¬ 
ment. It had become so that, when we went 
to sit down, our legs would give way and we 
would tumble like an overbalanced mechanical 
doll. Hubbard was failing daily. When he 
walked he habitually staggered, and one day at 
the end of a portage he came very near to 
having a physical collapse. When he started to 
tell me something about his wife’s sister, he could 
not recall her name. This, and other queer 
lapses of memory, appeared to frighten him 
more than it did us. But he rallied. Next day 
he seemed our mental superior, if not our physi¬ 
cal equal. 

“On the morning of October 6th, our break¬ 
fast flew right into camp. It was a plump 
spruce-partridge. It lit in a tree close to the 
fire; George’s pistol cracked, and it all but fell 
into the waiting kettle hanging over the coals. 
While we were eating the prize, Hubbard told 
us he had been dreaming of home during the 
night. The fact is, nearly every day now we 
heard that he had been dreaming the night be¬ 
fore of his wife or mother; they were always 
giving him good things to eat, or he was going 
to good dinners with them. It gave George and 
me a creepy sensation to listen to these tales as 
time went on. 


THE EXPLORER 


283 


“In working back into the Susan Valley we 
had a definite plan, if it might be dignified by 
such a name. In going out, some fifteen miles 
below the junction of Goose Creek and Susan 
River we had abandoned about four pounds of 
wet flour; twelve or fifteen miles below the flour 
we had cached a few pounds of evaporated milk, 
and four or five miles further down the trail we 
hoped to find a pail containing several pounds 
of lard. Hubbard hoped that we might salvage 
these and that they would assist us on our way 
to Grand Lake. 

“The morning of Thursday, October 15th, we 
went over our belongings. As they were getting 
too heavy, we had decided to abandon certain 
staples we had hitherto considered as of vital 
importance. Thus we left behind my rifle and 
cartridges, some pistol ammunition, the sextant, 
the tarpaulin, fifteen rolls of photographic film, 
my fishing-rod, maps, blank note-book, and vari¬ 
ous other odds and ends. 

“We struggled on. At midday George aban¬ 
doned his waterproof camp-bag and his personal 
effects, that he might be able to carry Hubbard’s 
Winchester, which was evidently getting to be an 
irksome burden to the poor fellow. This re¬ 
lieved Hubbard of seven pounds, but he again 
failed before we attained our day’s schedule. 
With jaws set he tottered grimly on until his 


234 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


legs refused to carry him; then he sank to the 
ground. I helped him into camp, and returned 
for his pack. 

“Neither George nor I had sufficient strength 
to swing our axe in getting wood for a fire that 
evening, so we broke up sticks across our wob¬ 
bly knees. As we reclined in the open front of 
the tent, at Hubbard’s request I read from the 
Bible. At the end he murmured, T’m so happy, 
and oh, so sleepy!’ After that he was very 
quiet. I noticed he did not make his usual entry 
in his diary that day’s end; but I did make mine. 
I wrote: ‘Hubbard’s condition is pitiable, but 
he bears himself like a hero, trying always to 
cheer and encourage us. He is visibly failing. 
His voice is very weak and low. I fear he will 
break down at eveiy step. O God! what can 
we do? How can we save him?’ 

“Next day the sky was overcast; a raw wind 
was blowing which penetrated our rags and set 
us a-shivering. At dawn we reboiled some of 
our old bones, also a piece of our old caribou hide. 
Cold and utterly miserable, we forced our way 
along. 

“At noon we came upon our first camp above 
the Susan River. There George picked up one 
of our old flour bags. Clinging to it were a few 
lumps of mouldy flour. We scraped them care¬ 
fully into the pot, to give a little more taste 


THE EXPLORER 


235 


and sustenance to the bone-water. We also 
found a box with a little baking-powder still in 
it. The powder was streaked with rust, but we 
ate it all ravenously. 

“A few minutes later Hubbard came upon a 
box nearly half-full of pasty mustard. After 
we had each eaten a mouthful, George put the 
remainder in the pot. He was about to throw 
the box away when Hubbard held out a skinny 
hand toward it, his eyes full of pleading. 

“Hubbard took the box, and sat holding it in 
his hand. Then, as if talking to himself, he said: 
‘That box came from my home in Congers. 
Mina, my wife, had this very box in her 
hands. Mina handed it to me as I left. She 
said the mustard might be useful for plasters. 
We’ve just eaten it instead! I wonder when I’ll 
see her again? Yes, she had that very box in 
her hands—in her hands!” 

“Slowly he bent his head. We saw his breast 
heave—that poor, scrawny breast no bigger now 
than a boy’s—and we knew tears were trickling 
down his hollow cheeks into his matted beard. 
Silently George and I turned away. 

“When we reached the point near the junction 
of the Susan River and Goose Creek, where we 
were to cross the river to our last camping 
ground in the valley, it was near night. Hub¬ 
bard had been staggering all the afternoon with 



236 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


the greatest difficulty, insisting that we go on 
every time we broached a stop. Finally he sank 
to the ground, completely exhausted. George 
took his pack across the river. While he 
crouched there on the trail, poor Hubbard’s face 
was the picture of absolute despair. I helped 
him to his feet. In silence we forded the shal¬ 
low stream, he leaning upon my shoulder. 

“Among the fir trees a little way from the river 
bank, we set up our desolate camp, the tent fac¬ 
ing a big rock. More bone-water served us for 
supper, with the addition of a long-preserved 
yeast-cake. 

“After the meal Hubbard said: ‘Boys, I 
guess I’m through walking for a while, this time 
for sure. In the morning maybe you had bet¬ 
ter leave me here and go on and try to reach 
Blake’s camp at the head of Grand Lake. He 
said he’d be in by October to begin his winter 
trapping. Perhaps you’ll find that wet flour 
and milk-powder and lard. They’ll help you. 
If Blake isn’t there try to go to the post.’ And 
so we laid our plans for the morning. 

“He lay down in his blanket. After a little 
he went on: ‘B’y, (this was a Newfoundland 
term of close comradeship by which he and I 
often addressed each other) I’m rather chilly 
to-night; won’t you make the fire a little bigger?’ 
I threw on more wood, and then he asked me to 


THE EXPLORER 


237 


read the two chapters from the Bible we had 
often read before—the fourteenth of John and 
the thirteenth of First Corinthians. But hardly 
had I started, when glancing at him, I saw that, 
as gently as a tired child, he had fallen asleep. 

“I did not try to sleep myself that night. 
My heart was heavy with a presentiment of 
something dreadful to happen. I felt that I 
must be awake to meet it when it should come. 
What a nightmare of a night it was! The wind 
howled; a dreary, monotonous rain set in, to 
add to the darkness and dreariness. 

“The darkness slowly faded into drab—Sun¬ 
day, October 18 th, had been ushered in. The 
trees dripped moisture; more fell from the som¬ 
bre clouds. Hubbard was wonderfully cheerful, 
somehow,—probably to encourage George and 
me. While eating our breakfast of caribou-hide 
soup, he recited hopeful lines from various poets, 
and said that if we could not make the forty 
miles to Blake’s cabin on Grand Lake he was 
sure we could at least go the fifteen miles to the 
cached flour. 

“Hubbard gave George his pistol and com¬ 
pass. I had my own. Each of us had a half¬ 
blanket. Then I made my last entry in my 
diary, placing it with other papers in my camp- 
bag, which I deposited in a corner of the tent. 
When our preparations were completed, Flub- 



238 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


bard asked me to read from the thirteenth chap¬ 
ter of First Corinthians again, apologizing for 
falling asleep while I was reading the night be¬ 
fore. I did so. When I was through he said: 
‘Thank you, b’y. That makes me feel good. 
I’m not worried. You must not be. God will 
send us help somehow.’ 

“It was time for George and me to go. How 
hard it was to say good-bye to that poor fellow 
who we might never see alive again! Tears 
welled up into my eyes. George’s leather-like 
face was strangely drawn. 

“I collected myself with an effort. Turning 
to Hubbard, I held out my hand. ‘Good-bye, 
b’y; I’ll be back soon,’ I said. ‘I'm coming 
back from the place where we left the flour, and 
bring some of it to you if it’s there. I’m 
coming back anyhow to stay with you.’ And 
then, as I looked into his poor, wistful eyes, I 
broke down and sobbed. 

“I crawled over to him, and put my arm about 
his wasted figure. I kissed his cheek, and he 
kissed my cheek. George followed my example, 
half-Indian though he was. The situation took 
the heart right out of us—exposed it plainly. 

“So George and I left our dear old comrade of 
the trail—left him alone there in the solitude of 
the Labradorean wilds, patiently to await our 



THE EXPLORER 


239 


return, fighting off the Grim Reaper while we 
sought food and aid. As we passed amid the 
trees, I took a last look back. I saw the little 
peak of balloon silk which had been our transient 
home for so many weeks. The black kettle 
looked very pathetic; the white mossy carpet put 
me in mind of a dismal shroud; the dripping, 
weeping fir trees were all about, veritable mourn¬ 
ers. 

“The flour-bag we were to look for was on 
the opposite or south side of the river. That 
night snow fell. Before noon of the second day 
we found a place to ford. The icy water came 
almost up to our armpits, but we got over, teeth 
chattering. In less than ten minutes our cloth¬ 
ing was frozen stiff upon our bodies. We had 
some hot tea, and then pushed on. We simply 
must reach the flour-bag that night. 

“I found it hard to keep the pace George was 
setting. Several times he had to wait for me to 
catch up. That afternoon we were lucky 
enough to shoot a grouse. We plucked the bird 
and rather than wait to cook it, we ate the head, 
neck, and wings raw, bones and all. The warm 
blood seemed to strengthen us greatly. 

“But George’s long strides proved too much 
of a tax. upon my strength. At length I told 
him to go ahead and look for the flour; that I 


240 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


would rest and follow his trail later. He would 
not consent to this, and slowed down his steps 
to suit mine. 

“It was just dusk when we reached our former 
camping-place where we had left the flour-sack. 
You can imagine how delighted we were, especi¬ 
ally when George ran his hand under a certain 
bush and pulled out the bag we were looking 
for. We opened it eagerly. 

“I think I have said that we left about four 
pounds of flour in this bag. Now there was an 
equal quantity of something, but to our disap¬ 
pointment it was a lump of green and black 
mould! 

“For supper that night we had a royal feast 
—nothing less than half of the boiled grouse 
with some of the flour-mould stirred in reserving 
the other half grouse for morning. Thinking 
of Hubbard, we had a guilty feeling as we ate, 
but we certainly had to eat just the same. 

“After breakfast next morning we divided the 
mouldy flour remaining. George looked criti¬ 
cally at my share, and asked: ‘How long can 
you keep alive on that?’ ‘It will take me two 
days to reach Hubbard,’ I replied; ‘the two of 
us might live three days more on it in a pinch.’ 
‘Think you can live as long as that?’ asked 
George, looking me hard in the eye. ‘I’ll try,’ 
I said. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘I’ll have help for you 


THE EXPLORER 


241 


both—if there’s help to be had at Grand Lake. 
Day after to-morrow I’ll be there. Those fel¬ 
lows will be strong, an’ can reach you an’ Hub¬ 
bard in two days. So expect ’em.’ Then we 
parted. 

“My struggles back to Hubbard are all like 
a half-dream to me now. I know that after 
Saturday night, when I unknowingly camped 
within a stone’s throw of his tent, I lost all count 
of the days, and soon could not recall even the 
month. I traveled on and on, always down the 
valley. Sometimes I fancied I heard men shout¬ 
ing, and I would reply. But the men did not 
come, and I would gaze dully at the spot among 
the trees or rocks from which I had expected 
them to appear. It was snowing when I left 
George, and for ten days and nights the snow 
never ceased. 

“The flour-mould nauseated me to such an ex¬ 
tent that for a day at a time I could not force 
myself to partake of it. I ate the remnants of 
my moccasins, scorching the leather in the fire, 
and walked in my stocking feet. The bushes 
tore away the legs of my trousers completely. 
Strange to say, I kept the spark of life alive in 
me, but that was all. 

“And still it snowed, night and day—some¬ 
times gently, sometimes blindingly; but always 

it snowed. There were times when the feeling 

* 


242 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


was strong upon me that I had been alone and 
wandering forever, and that, like the Jew, I 
must go on until the end of all things. At night, 
instinctively I sought shelters under leaning 
rocks, in the lee of bushes, between great logs. 

“One morning when I awoke I pulled my rag¬ 
ged blanket over my shoulders and struggled to 
my feet. I would surely come upon Hubbard 
that day! 

“But I swayed dizzily; took a few steps for¬ 
ward, and fell. I crawled slowly back to my 
smouldering stump-fire. I felt an overpowering 
desire to sleep. A riot of disconnected thoughts 
ran through my head. Then I found myself 
dozing, and aroused myself with an effort, only 
to doze again and again and to arouse myself 
again and again. I was eager to sleep; my 
whole body cried for it in every nerve. But in¬ 
telligence told me I must not sleep; Brain fought 
Body. Now one was floored, only to get up and 
floor the other. Tired nature gave way. Once 
more I dozed. 

“All at once some unusual noise aroused me. 
With a great effort I got upon my feet, and 
strained my ears. There it was again! It was 
surely a shout! With all the energy I could 
summon I cried, ‘Hello-o-o!’ 

“At first all was silent. I began to fear that 
my brain was tricking me again. Then over 


THE EXPLORER 


243 


the bank of the river came the most welcome 
sight my eyes had ever beheld—four swarthy 
men on snowslioes, dressed in warm jackets and 
fur caps! 

“I found out afterwards that there was only 
one thing that saved me from being left alone to 
sleep myself away into eternity; that was Donald 
Blake’s keen sense of smell. They had camped 
more than a mile above me. On breaking camp 
in the morning they smelled the smoke of my 
dying fire. Taking the direction of the wind 
they came upon my tracks of the day before 
and trailed me to my bivouac, fourteen days 
after my parting from Hubbard. 

“Shortly after finding me, two of the four 
trappers left, bent on making all haste to succor 
Hubbard. The other two men remained be¬ 
hind, as I was too weak to go on immediately. 
Hot tea and warm blankets and a blazing fire 
gave me great relief. Then I fell asleep. At 
the end of an hour I awoke, and had a little 
more tea and a piece of buttered bread. Oh, 
how good that bread did taste! And how ill it 
made me! It was, indeed, several weeks before 
my contracted stomach would accept food with¬ 
out distress. 

I was glad to learn that George had succeeded 
in reaching the trappers, and that they had in¬ 
sisted upon his remaining behind, to be looked 


244 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


after by their wives while they sought Hubbard 
and myself. 

“Next morning those who had left returned. 
When I saw that they had Hubbard’s rifle I 
knew that the worst had happened. 

“ 'Yesterday evenin’ we found the tent,’ said 
Donald Blake. 'The pore feller were fastened 
up tight inside, with pins holdin’ the flaps 
t’gether, an’ the tent hadn’t been opened since 
the snow began. When Allen an’ me looked in¬ 
side, there he was—all wrapped up in the blank¬ 
ets, jest as if sleepin’. But he weren’t sleepin’; 
he were stone dead, sir—stone dead.’ 

“The next day I felt strong enough to travel. 
Following the trappers, who carried all my be¬ 
longings, I plodded toward Grand Lake. Upon 
our arrival, George was one of the first to greet 
me. He was overjoyed at my safety, but 
greatly grieved to learn of Hubbard’s death. 
From a weight of 170 pounds, I found that my 
experience in the wilds had brought me down to 
a bare 95 pounds. 

“Long months ensued before Hubbard’s body 
could be brought out of the snowy wastes. Dur¬ 
ing that time I was slowly regaining health. 
Gangrene had developed in both my frozen feet. 
I was taken by dog sledge to a lumber camp and 
placed under the care of the camp doctor, a 
young man named Hardy. Doctor Hardy, be- 


THE EXPLORER 


245 


fore coming to the country, had contracted tu¬ 
berculosis. Shortly after my arrival at the lum¬ 
ber camp he had a complete breakdown, and for 
several weeks we two lay on adjoining cots in 
the mess room of the camp. He told me he 
could not recover, and that we must expect his 
death before the spring thaw came. He never 
lost his courage or his interest in my case. Un¬ 
der his directions the lumber camp people dressed 
my feet and nursed me until I was able, toward 
the end of February, to be around again. Dr. 
Hardy died in March. To his skill I owe my 
life. 

On the last day of February, though still 
feeble, I returned by dog train to Northwest 
River trading post. With the assistance of 
Thomas MacKenzie, the factor of the post, I 
secured the assistance of two trappers to go into 
the country and recover Hubbard’s body. 
George was detailed to guide them to Hubbard’s 
last camp, and upon my request, the lumbermen 
built for us a rough spruce box to receive the 
remains when brought down to the post. 

After several unsuccessful attempts, George 
and the trappers succeeded in reaching the old 
camp about the middle of March. Hubbard’s 
body, covered by the collapsed tent, was found 
under eight feet of snow. The dogs pulled it 
back upon the sledge. In April, when I had 


246 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


sufficiently recovered the use of frozen feet to 
permit me to travel I transported with dogs and 
sledge, the remains of my dear friend one hun¬ 
dred thirty-five miles to Cape Charles, from 
whence I accompanied it home by steamer. 

“We laid him to rest in a beautiful spot in the 
little cemetery at Haverstraw, at the very foot 
of the mountains which he used to roam, 
and overlooking the grand old Hudson which he 
loved so well. The mountains will know him 
no more; he will never again dip his paddle into 
the placid waters of the river; but the memory of 
his noble character, his simple faith, his bravery, 
his indomitable will in the face of all obstacles 
and all suffering, to go on and make discoveries 
of new peoples and new lands for the good of the 
world in general, shall live always.” 1 

1 Note: In his book, “The Lure of the Labrador Wild” Mr. 
Wallace tells the complete story of the Hubbard Expedition. 


$11 

THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 


T HE term “big game” is a more or less 
elastic one. In other words, the nim- 
rod who has never been able to shoot any¬ 
thing larger than a red-squirrel would probably 
speak of a raccoon, if he were fortunate enough 
to kill one, as “big game.” On the other hand, 
the hunter used to sallying forth after lions and 
leopards would consider a fox as very small 
game. But, generally speaking, “big game” is 
supposed to include all mammals larger than a 
fox. 

If you were to cross the seas into the wilds of 
the Old World, especially the more tropical por¬ 
tions of it, you would find a wide range of big 
game. There is the elephant, the rhinoceros, the 
hippopotamus, the giraffe, the lion, the tiger, the 
jaguar, the leopard, the hyena, the jackal, the 
tapir, the buffalo, the zebra, the cheetah, the 
wart-hog, the antelope, the gazelle, the water- 
buck, the wildebeest, the hartebeest, the aard- 
wolf, and the great-eared fox. And right here 
at home, in North America, you would find the 

247 


248 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


* 


grizzly-bear, the black-bear, the brown-bear, the 
polar-bear, the caribou, the bison, the moose, the 
elk, the wapiti, the deer, the bighorn, the prong¬ 
horn antelope, the cougar, the timber-wolf, the 
coyote, and the red-fox. 

At the time when we first became a nation, 
nine-tenths of the territory now included within 
the limits of the United States was wilderness— 
a primeval forest and prairie teeming with wild 
game. Just before the outbreak of the Revolu¬ 
tion, small bands of hardy pioneers first began 
crossing the Alleghanies, and roamed far and 
wide through the lonely, danger-haunted forests 
lying between the Tennessee and the Ohio Rivers. 
They waged a ferocious warfare with Shawnee 
and Wyandott, who would force them back upon 
the East again, and during this eternal strife 
the white hunters depended almost entirely upon 
the wild animals of field and wood for the food 
they ate and the clothing they wore upon their 
backs. While the first Continental Congress 
was still sitting, Daniel Boone, first and fore¬ 
most of all American hunters, was leading his 
groups of tall backwoods riflemen into the beau¬ 
tiful rolling country of Kentucky, where the 
war with the red man was fought even harder 
than it had been along the Ohio, so hard, in fact, 
that both races alike grew to know it as “the dark 
and bloody ground.” 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 249 


Step by step, often leap by leap, the frontier 
was pushed farther westward; and ever before 
its advance fled the bronzed natives, fiercely con¬ 
testing every inch of the ground, which they con¬ 
sidered their own by right of first possession. 
When the Revolutionary War was at its height, 
George Rogers Clarke, himself a mighty hunter 
of the old backwoods type, led his handful of 
hunter-soldiers to the conquest of the French 
towns of the Illinois. Clad in their picturesque 
fringed and tasselled hunting-shirts of buckskin, 
tanned with their own hands from hides of ani¬ 
mals shot down with their own unerring rifles; 
w r ith coonskin caps on their heads, and deerhide 
leggings and moccasins; and with powder-horns 
made from the headerest of some bison which had 
fallen a prey to their marksmanship,—they 
stopped at nothing in satisfying their curiosity 
to go on and on and on. 

Soon after the beginning of the present cen¬ 
tury, Louisiana came into our hands. Then the 
most daring of the hunters and explorers pushed 
through the forests of the Mississippi valley to 
the great plains, steered across the vast seas of 
grass to the Rocky Mountains, wormed their 
way through the rugged defiles of rock and tim¬ 
ber, and onwards to the Pacific Ocean. In 
every work of exploration; in all the earlier bat¬ 
tles with the original lords of the western and 


250 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


southwestern lands, whether Indian or Mexican, 
such adventurous hunters played the leading 
part; while close behind came the swarm of hard- 
fisted, dogged border-farmers—a masterful race 
of good fighters and kindly-souled men, from 
whom many of us have sprung. 

Fearless Davy Crockett, as honest and 
straight-forward as the day is long, was one of 
these pioneer hunters and leaders of men. He 
was perhaps the best shot of his day, loved and 
admired by all white men and all women and chil¬ 
dren; hated and feared by all painted savages. 
We feel an exaltation and shed a tear as we re¬ 
call this brave fellow’s heroism in meeting death 
in the ruins of the Alamo. Even more notable, 
perhaps, was that other mighty hunter of the 
time, Sam Houston, who ran away to the In¬ 
dians when a boy, and who, when still a youth, 
returned to his own people to serve under 
Andrew Jackson in a number of memorable 
campaigns against the Creeks, the Spaniards, 
and the British. Houston rejoined the red men, 
became one of their leading chiefs, and once 
more hearkened to the cry of distress from his 
own kind. This time it was to lead the noble 
Texans in victory against that infamous oppres¬ 
sor, Santa Anna, which resulted in Houston’s 
election to the Presidency of the new Republic, 
a signal honor indeed. 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 251 

Gradually the typical hunter and Indian 
fighter ceased to be a backwoodsman; he merged 
into the plainsman, the mountaineer; for the 
frontier, east of which he had never willingly 
gone, had been pushed beyond the Mississippi. 
Restless, reckless, and hardy, he spent years of 
his life in lonely wanderings through the Rockies 
as hunter and trapper; he guarded the slowly 
moving caravans along the dangerous Santa Fe 
trail, sallying forth in the face of hostiles to bring 
down game with his deadly rifle for the suste¬ 
nance of the members of his party, both as re¬ 
gards food and clothing. If an isolated settler’s 
cabin were threatened by the red men, he was one 
of the first to bring warning and raise his weapon 
in helpful defense. Such a man was the re¬ 
nowned Kit Carson—the best, the bravest, the 
most modest of all plainsmen and Indian fighters. 
Again and again Kit Carson crossed and re¬ 
crossed the continent, from the Mississippi to the 
Pacific; he guided, and killed game for many of 
the earliest military and exploring expeditions of 
the United States Government; he himself led 
the troops in successful attacks against the 
Apache and the Navajo; and in the Civil War 
he was a colonel in the Federal army. 

After Kit Carson came many other famous 
hunters. Most were pure-blooded Americans, 
but others were Creole Frenchmen, Mexicans, 



252 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


and some came from the ranks of the so-called 
civilized Indian tribes, notably the Delawares. 

Soon after the Civil War the life of these 
hunters, taken as a class, entered on its final 
stage. The Pacific coast was already fairly well 
settled, and there were a few mining camps in 
the Rockies; but most of this Rocky Mountain 
region and the entire stretch of plains country 
lying between the Rio Grande and the Saskatche¬ 
wan, still remained primeval wilderness, in¬ 
habited only by roving hunters and trappers, by 
formidable tribes of Indian nomads, and by the 
huge herds of game on which they preyed. 
Beaver swarmed in the streams, and yielded a 
rich harvest to the trapper. But trapping was 
no longer the mainstay of the adventurous plains¬ 
man ; for him a bigger game had loomed up—no 
less than the bison or American buffalo. So 
many were there of these great lumbering beasts 
that at times their masses darkened the horizon 
line. 

As the transcontinental railways were pushed 
toward completion, and the tide of settlement 
rolled onward, robes made from the thick hides 
of the buffalo became of increasing value. The 
hunters forthwith turned their attention to the 
chase of the great clumsy beasts, riding in close 
and slaughtering them by hundreds at a time, 
though they often stalked them afoot and 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 253 


brought them down from ambush with their long- 
range Sharp’s rifles. 

By the close of 1883 the last buffalo herd was 
destroyed; the beaver were trapped out of all the 
streams, or their numbers so thinned that it no 
longer paid to follow them. The last formidable 
Indian War had been brought to a close; the 
flood of the incoming whites had washed over the 
one-time jealously guarded lands of the red man, 
and he had been put into selected corners under 
the watchful but kindly eye of Uncle Sam. The 
frontier had come to an end; it had vanished. 
With it went also the old race of wilderness 
hunters, the men who spent all their days in the 
lonely wilds, who killed game as their sole means 
of livelihood. 

Great stretches of wilderness still remain in 
the Rocky Mountains, however; the Cascades 
of the Pacific coast also contain them, and the 
Alleghanies of the Eastern States are not with¬ 
out a strong touch of the primeval. And while 
the beaver and the bison are now a game to be 
talked about rather than seen, there yet remain 
in the solitudes I have named considerable num¬ 
bers of valuable and destructive animals of the 
big-game variety. And the lives of these beasts 
—many of which were named at the outstart of 
this chapter—are still placed in jeopardy by the 
hand of the skilled trapper and hunter. 


254 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


But he is a new sort, not the old type. This 
modern hunter does not always confine his at¬ 
tention to the animals of his own land. New 
ways of traveling have made the hundred miles 
of to-day no more formidable than the mile of 
yesterday; so the modern American hunter of 
big game is found almost as often stalking the 
wild creatures of the African jungle or Indian 
canebrake as he is found trailing the huge deni¬ 
zens of his own rugged fastnesses. In the same 
way, European hunters frequently visit the 
magnificent forests of North America in quest 
of specimens. It is a game in which both parties 
seem to derive the utmost pleasure, while the 
world at large becomes more animal-wise because 
of the discoveries these men of the wilds make. 

Such hunters are made up principally of three 
classes. The more numerous are those whose 
services are bound to nobody, who hunt when 
and where they please, whose livelihood is gained 
largely from the sale to furriers of the 
skins they take. Such hunters usually stick 
around home ground, as they seldom get together 
enough money to travel far in quest of the game 
they seek. 

The second class of big-game hunters are the 
men who have plenty of money, either inherited 
or earned from some other source than their guns. 
With them hunting is .a passion and a hobby; 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 255 

they love the zest and adventure of the chase, as 
a boy loves the zest and excitement of a baseball 
game. As a rule they are representative citi¬ 
zens, well-educated, progressive, with a strong 
leaning toward the scientific side of things. 
They not only take great pleasure in shooting 
wild creatures, but they have a greater pleasure 
in securing specimens new to books and the 
knowledge of man—information which they 
like to pass on to our museums and similar 
disbursers of biological knowledge. You can 
readily see that these men become an all-power¬ 
ful factor for good to the world in thus enrich¬ 
ing its fund of learning about animals. Many a 
scientific treatise and school text-book, many a 
public institution, owes much to the free-will 
contributions of this class of hunters. 

And third, we have the purely scientific 
hunter himself—the professional chap, the man 
who hunts for some organization of men who 
pay him a regular salary for hunting, and who 
send him to the far corners of the globe in quest 
of anything on four legs which is new and worth 
studying. Of course these are the hunters to 
whom the scientific world owes its greatest debt 
of gratitude, for their business is gathering new 
and interesting facts about mammals. They 
are usually sent out by the scientific departments 
of their own country, although in some few in- 



256 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


stances private interests employ them. In 
either event they are not only the smartest men 
on the subject of zoology and taxidermy who can 
be found, but they are also skilled in gunnery, 
in every trick of woodcraft and woodlore; and 
they are brave to the backbone, muscular, keen 
of eye, and ready for any emergency. These 
men go thoroughly equipped with the best of 
everything for their work. They carry field- 
glasses for distant^ observation, expensive cam¬ 
eras for recording interesting photographs, 
chemicals for preserving skins and bones, field 
books for jotting down sketches and informa¬ 
tion; and of course their guns are of the most 
powerful and efficient kind, and their knives the 
keenest of well-tempered steel. They never 
hunt alone, as their peril is of too grave a charac¬ 
ter, besides which their extensive outfits, and later 
their trophies, demand numerous servants or 
assistants to handle and transport. 

And now, when you stop to think of it, hasn’t 
a half-century made a wonderful difference in 
the types of big-game hunters? Fifty years 
ago the old-timer brought down the bear, deer, 
lion, or tiger, for his own or his family’s personal 
use—the flesh to satisfy hunger; the pelt from 
which to fashion his clothing. To-day the pelts 
and flesh which are taken, very rarely are uti¬ 
lized by the hunter or his kin. If the skins do 



THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 257 

not eventually go to the rich as ornamental 
robes, rugs, and furs, then they find their way 
into museums as mounted specimens. And as 
a rule the flesh itself is left to feed carnivorous 
animals still prowling about the scene of the 
killing. 

Uncle Sam kills wild animals, however, with 
still another purpose than scientific study. This is 
done to protect the crops and domestic animals 
and fowls from those beasts which like to ravage 
such things. By making war on such predatory 
creatures as wolves, coyotes, cougars or moun¬ 
tain-lions, wildcats, and lynxes, the Government 
saves many thousands of dollars yearly to 
farmers and ranch-owners in the wild regions of 
the country. For instance, it is said that the 
value of live-stock and wool destroyed annually 
by predatory animals in the United States is 
about twenty million dollars. Farmers suffered 
more or less patiently under this affliction until 
the World War broke out. Then every pound 
of meat and wool became a matter of such great 
importance to the people that Uncle Sam sent 
out his agents, with gun a-shoulder, to do all they 
could to abate the nuisance. 

So to-day the Biological Survey has between 
four and five hundred paid hunters whose sole 
duty it is to hunt and trap wild animals of a 
harmful kind. Last year these professional 


258 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


nimrods made a haul of about 32,000 skins and 
scalps. These trophies were divided among the 
various animal species as follows: Wolves, 
584; coyotes, 27,100; mountain-lions, 149; wild¬ 
cats, 4,123; Canada lynxes, 43. By practicing 
the strictest business methods, the Government 
is able to sell much of the flesh and fur of these 
animals, realizing therefrom a tidy sum running 
well up toward a hundred thousand dollars a 
year. 

As a rule, the hunters in this work are secured 
by Uncle Sam from the districts in which they 
hunt, and many of them have a very meagre 
book-learning, though their knowledge of wood¬ 
craft is of the broadest, as it needs must be if they 
are to be a success at their task. Their force is 
also strongly augmented by the numerous Forest 
Rangers of the Government who, in addition to 
guarding the National Forests from timber 
thieves and that dreadful scourge, fire, make it a 
daily duty to kill all predatory animals they pos¬ 
sibly can. The regular hunters themselves use 
about two hundred traps each, and often as 
many as five or six ponies. The traps are set 
at strategic intervals along a line reaching from 
fifty to one hundred miles. As may be imag¬ 
ined, it keeps the hunter busy making his 
rounds, especially in bad weather, when the 
snows are deep and the storms violent. 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 259 


Not long ago, in a conversation with Roy 
Stendel, Forest Ranger at the station at Water 
Canon, Datil National Forest, New Mexico, he 
told me the story of an encounter with cougars 
which will give you some idea of the constant 
risks this class of men run when they turn 
hunters of predatory animals. 

“The night of March 3d, 1915, it snowed very 
hard at Water Canon,” said young Stendel, who 
is a sturdy, smooth-faced, boyish-looking fellow. 
“It snowed, without let-up, all night long. And, 
for good measure, it kept it up all the next day, 
too. When the snow ceased falling toward 
dark, it was knee-high and as fluffy as fine 
feathers. 

“As I had been shut up in the cabin for a 
whole day—which was a long time for a Ranger 
to be so situated—I shouldered my old .30-40 
Winchester on the morning of the 5th, slung my 
camera over my shoulder, and set out to look for 
cougars. For a couple of miles I saw nothing 
except a cow’s trail. Then I came abruptly 
upon a cougar’s footprints. The big cat was 
headed down around the mesa toward the flat, 
most accomodatingly providing me with a 
broken trail toward home. So down the moun¬ 
tain I went, feeling right cheerful. 

“Presently I began to realize that my cougar 
was taking unusually short steps. Studying the 


260 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


matter a little and examining the footprints, I 
was soon convinced that he had been joined by 
a second cougar, and that I was following two 
of them instead of one. It was only when the 
one behind occasionally got out of step with the 
leader that this fact became evident. 

‘‘Following carefully for about a mile, I came 
to where the two cougars had broken into a run. 
This indicated that I had been discovered. I 
proceeded cautiously, keeping a sharp lookout 
ahead. Pretty soon I heard a limb crack. 
Looking up quickly I was rewarded by seeing 
the flash of about six inches of a cougar’s tail as 
he sprang out of one of the little pines ahead of 
me. 

“The snow was so deep I could not make very 
good headway, but I ran forward as fast as I 
could, floundering up to my waist on the hillside 
and trying to get the animal in a favorable posi¬ 
tion for a shot. 

“Suddenly something seemed to tell me to 
look around behind me. I did so—and what do 
you think I saw? Nothing less than the second 
cougar coming leisurely along the back-trail in 
my direction! Let me remark that he was a 
mighty big mountain-lion, was not more than 
seventy-five yards off, and that he kept right on 
coming when he saw that I was looking his way. 

“You just bet I proceeded to forget all about 



THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 261 

the first cougar right then and there—at least 
for the moment. A little excited, I took a 
rather hasty shot at Cougar Number Two’s 
head. Later I found out that this bullet cut a 
furrow in his neck. He paid not the slightest 
attention, except to utter a snarl and come on 
faster than ever. 

“A second shot, also aimed at his head, had no 
better effect. By this time he was only about 
forty yards from me and exhibiting the finest 
set of ugly-looking teeth I ever saw in any 
cougar’s mouth. There was no question about 
his determination to go over the trail I was in, 
regardless of me, and as I too felt rather stub¬ 
born about forsaking it, I saw I would be wise 
to try a third shot, and that right quick. 

“This time I aimed for his broad, tawny- 
colored breast, just below the base of the neck, 
and pulled the trigger. He came right on, as if 
I was snapping paper-wads at him. But only 
for a little way. Then he stopped, showed me 
his teeth, suddenly whirled about, and started 
back the other way, still in the trail. But I 
could see that he was not going so fast; and feel¬ 
ing positive that my last shot had struck a vital 
spot, I expected to witness his collapse at any 
moment, 

“Following along after the wounded cougar, 
with my rifle ready for instant use, I let the 


262 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


beast go plowing through the snow. Finally he 
stopped at the base of a big spruce tree, and 
seemed considering whether or not he should go 
on or attempt to climb it. As I came closer, he 
turned around, lashing his long tail from side to 
side and crouching with his belly fair in the 
snow, while he gave me another free exhibition 
of two rows of long, white teeth. 

“At almost the same instant I saw the other 
cougar. He was in the tree just behind and 
above the wounded animal. Evidently this 
chap had circled around to the back-trail when 
I scared him out of his first perch, and was now 
ready to join forces against me with his comrade. 

“For the first time I began to feel a little un¬ 
easy. And this feeling grew as I realized, with 
a start, that I had neglected to feed three car¬ 
tridges into the magazine of my Winchester, in 
place of the ones I had fired, and that it now 
held only two. Besides, I knew I would be in 
a nice pickle there in that deep snow if I had to 
do any dodging and running. So I watched 
those two cougars like an eagle, feeling a little 
trembly, for, you know, I could not see both of 
them at the same time, and had to switch my 
gaze entirely off one in order to fasten it upon 
his companion. You never saw a pair of eyes 
do faster twisting than mine were doing for a 
few minutes; at the same time I began to fumble 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 263 


to open the action of the rifle and stuff those 
three cartridges into the magazine. I was so 
wrought up that if a twig had popped behind 
me, I would have jumped right out of my boots 
if they had been a trifle looser fit. 

“Well, I managed to squeeze those cartridges 
in, and then I felt a lot easier. As soon as the 
last chunk of lead was in place, I slowly elevated 
my gun and drew a bead on the cougar up in 
the branches. As the crack of the rifle rang out, 
I saw him give a big quiver and clutch spasmodi¬ 
cally at the limb upon which he was crouched. 
T got you that time, old boy!’ I cried. And it 
did seem so; for half a minute later he came 
tumbling down, square on top of the other cou¬ 
gar. This was such a surprise that the animal 
below was knocked off his feet, and the next mo¬ 
ment both cougars went rolling together down 
the slope, end over end, scattering the light snow 
in every direction. 

“The cougar I had first shot at was first to 
stop. The other kept on rolling a few rods; 
then he likewise came to rest in a declivity. 
Neither one got up. In fact, neither moved a 
muscle, so far as I could see. There was no 
question in my mind that both were dead. 

“I followed down the slope in the great swath 
the animals had swept with their heavy bodies. 
Before the first cougar I stopped, unslung my 


264 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


camera, and began to run out the bellows pre¬ 
paratory to taking a picture of my trophy just 
as he lay. Dissatisfied with the view I would 
get with the animal in his present position, I be¬ 
gan to whistle cheerfully, and planted a foot on 
his foreshoulder with the idea of turning him 
slightly by a strong shove. 

“When I did begin to shove, that cougar sud¬ 
denly lifted his head partially and opened up a 
gaping mouth within three inches of the afore¬ 
said foot. Well, sir, the foot didn’t stay there 
long. I quit whistling, too! The fact is, I 
backed away so fast that I fell backward in the 
snow, and snapped the camera at the placid blue 
sky and green-needled branches over my head! 

“Forsaking the picture-machine, I scrambled 
to my feet. I grabbed up my rifle from the 
trunk of the tree against which I had stood it, 
and assumed a defensive attitude which must 
have been comical for the moment had there been 
another person present to have witnessed it. 

“Mr. Mountain-Lion really gave me some ex¬ 
cuse for my attitude, however. He actually 
managed to struggle to his feet, and to bowl 
along for several yards in my direction. Then 
he stopped, glared at me with baleful, bloodshot 
eyes, and once more displayed his fine set of 
teeth as he uttered a rattling snarl. 

“I saw that he was able to stand only by a 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 265 

superanimal effort; that it was only a question 
of a few seconds before he would keel over again, 
probably for the last time. Even as I brought 
my gun up with the idea of putting him out of 
his misery, his legs gave way and he sank down 
in the snow. His eyes closed, his limbs twitched 
a moment, and then he lay perfectly still. This 
time I was quite sure he was dead, but I made 
doubly certain by prodding him with my gun 
barrel. Then I pulled the beast around in a 
favorable position for taking his picture, and 
secured several satisfactory views. 

“This done, I went down the slope, and 
stopped before the other cougar. I thought I 
could likewise improve on the position of this 
beast in a photographic sense, and, as he was 
dead to all appearances, I took hold of his tail to 
turn him around. As I did so there was a chain¬ 
lightning sort of movement on his part; his 
sturdy legs drew up close to his body and flew 
outward again; his thick neck twisted; I caught 
a fleeting glimpse of death-infested green eyes 
gleaming for the last time; saw the interior of a 
deep, red throat encircled by white fangs. Then 
the head dropped; the powerful jaws closed 
about a two-inch sapling which was luckily in 
closer proximity than I; there was a crunching, 
a growling, and the sapling fell—gnawed off as 
if it were made of putty! In one of the pictures 


266 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


I subsequently took of this animal, my tracks 
may be seen fairly close together going up to 
him. Going away, only a few footprints, very 
far apart, are to be observed,—and great scis¬ 
sors! how the snow is plowed up in that trail of 
departure. 

“I started the other cougar’s body down the 
slope toward the second animal. My aim was 
good. When the heavy carcass hit the dying 
mountain-lion, the latter let go of the sapling, 
set his teeth in the furry neck of his old comrade, 
and both went tumbling down-grade for a dis¬ 
tance of fully fifty yards, a great ball of hair and 
flesh, while snow matted into their fur and flew 
in every direction. When they came to a stop 
against the trunk of a big spruce, neither one of 
them ever kicked a leg or twitched a tail again. 
I went down, saw that both were dead, took 
some more pictures, then made my way back to 
the station. 

“There I secured two fellows, Bill and Tom 
Watson, to help me bring in my trophies. As 
this happened down on the Rio Grande, where 
real snows are rare, we had no sleigh available, 
and had to hitch up to a wagon. Then we found 
that we could not get a horse up the mountain¬ 
side in the snow, but we did succeed in getting 
old Henry, the mule, up there about four o’clock 
that afternoon. The cougars were both males, 



THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 267 

and weighed about 250 pounds each, having an 
average length of an even nine feet from tip of 
nose to tip of tail. They were so heavy that it 
was all we could do to get them up and lashed 
to old Henry’s back. We had a sweet time of 
it, too, in getting them down to the wagon, for 
it was over a mile and there were lots of rock 
slides in between; but we did it, and that night 
for supper we Ranger folk had the first cougar 
meat we had ever tasted. It was not half bad, 
at that—far better than some tough chickens you 
buy at the city market!” 

Of the carnivores of North America the bears 
are probably the most hunted, excepting the 
polar-bear, which is so inaccessible to the white 
race that it is not much sought. When polars 
are hunted they are usually taken on ice-floes 
or islands to which they resort for their food. 
When angered by pursuit, or when wounded, 
this bear is quite likely to turn on the hunter, 
and then becomes a dangerous antagonist. 

The Alaskan brown-bear group includes the 
great Kodiak-bear, which is by far the largest of 
the existing carnivores and probably often ex¬ 
ceeds a weight of 1200 pounds. They live 
chiefly in the mountain fastnesses, and are most 
frequently seen and shot along the streams 
where they catch salmon in the spring of the 


268 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


year. Powerful rifles, firing soft-nosed bullets, 
are chiefly used in hunting this huge beast. 

The grizzly-bear’s temper has undergone a 
great change since he first came into contact with 
civilized man. The early explorers and fron¬ 
tiersmen have left records which show that in 
their day the grizzly was naturally ferocious and 
quite happy at the chance of starting a fight 
whenever a human being hove in view. To-day 
the animal is inclined to make off at full speed 
the instant it suspects the presence of man. It 
does this so promptly and adroitly that even in 
a “bear country” as many as ten bruins will 
make a complete and unseen escape where one 
will be detected. A she-bear with cubs is 
likely to invite or even force a combat when she 
sees a hunter nearby, as intuition tells her the 
man is an enemy to her young; and any grizzly, 
if wounded or at bay, is likely to make a stand 
or attempt an onslaught. But even in a charge 
two animals may act in a totally different man¬ 
ner, one turning back if shot, or stopping to 
whine and bite at his wound; while the other may 
continue to charge until it is killed or succeeds 
in knocking down the hunter. One bear may 
bowl a man over with a single cuff of his great 
paw, and then take a notion to retreat; another 
bear may be satisfied by mouthing the hunter or 
giving him two or three half-hearted bites when 



© Underwood and Underwood 


BEAR HUNTERS’ CAMP 












THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 269 


he is down; and a third bear may lie on its victim 
for a half-hour, ferociously biting him to death 
and afterward tearing him to pieces. 

Charles J. Bayer, predatory animal inspector 
of the Department of Agriculture, tells of the 
end of a 1000-pound grizzly which had been kill¬ 
ing valuable domestic stock for several years in 
the vicinity -of Dubois, Wyoming. This im¬ 
mense bear—called “Silver Tip” by the cattle¬ 
men and settlers, because of the splash of silvery 
hairs in the black coat on his haunches—was so 
successful for a while in evading sight that, al¬ 
though he had been killing numerous cattle and 
sheep, no man could say he had seen the animal, 
and much doubt existed as to whether the killer 
was really a grizzly or not. 

“But in the winter of 1918,” Mr. Bayer states, 
“more tangible evidence came in. A trapper 
named Bob Levac one morning came around* the 
corner of his cabin and met this great grizzly 
face to face. One was as much surprised as the 
other; but Silver Tip was the first to recover. 
Before Levac could raise his gun or pull a knife, 
the bear gave the one-hundred-and-eighty pound 
Frenchman a pat on the shoulder which sent Le¬ 
vac tumbling as if a mountain had toppled over 
on him. Though his shoulder was almost dis¬ 
located and ached like fury, Levac had presence 
of mind enough to play ’possum. It takes nerve 


270 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


to shut your eyes and pretend you are a corpse 
when you’re not, and to let a monster bear do 
anything to you he takes a notion to do. But 
Levac did it; he knew that was his only salva¬ 
tion. Afterwards he said he kept wondering 
just in what part of him the first bite would 
come, and where the second bite would come, 
and the third one, and how many of them he 
could stand before he was a goner. 

“Well, old Silver Tip soon proved that he 
wasn’t the kind of bear to run away after that 
one cuff, anyway. He began pawing the pros¬ 
trate man, with his muzzle close to Levac’s 
bearded face—so close that the trapper could 
feel his hot breath and get the drip of saliva 
from his red tongue. Ugh! just think of it! I 
tell you, it took nerve to lie there—yes, sirree, it 
must have taken a lot of nerve! But Levac 
compelled himself to do it. 

“Pretty soon Silver Tip commenced hitting 
the trapper a little harder, hard enough to jog 
him from side to side. And then came a blow 
that rolled the poor fellow over completely. It 
hurt so that Levac almost yelled out with pain, 
but kept from it by biting into his tongue. I 
guess the grizzly must have been suspicious of 
him, and was testing him out a little to see if the 
spark of life really remained. Then the bear, 
not yet satisfied, began to mouth him along the 



THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 271 

arms, biting deeper and deeper. Of course this 
was excruciatingly painful to Levac, for every 
pinch of the powerful jaws was bringing out his 
blood in little trickles; but the man didn’t even 
moan. If he had had a knife about his person 
he would not have stood it. His gun, also, was 
too far away, where it had fallen, for him to 
reach. He saw he must endure it. 

“Presently the grizzly began rolling Levac 
over and over in the snow, stopping at intervals 
to give him a testing nip or two in the arms or 
legs. Then Silver Tip changed his tactics. He 
picked the trapper up by his clothing, and shook 
him like a terrier would a rat. 

“All this time Levac’s dog—a fox-hound— 
had been off in the brush chasing game. The 
dog now appeared upon the scene, and noting 
the predicament of his master, began to dash 
forward at every opportunity, snapping at the 
flanks of the grizzly. Silver Tip made several 
blows at the hound, any one of which would have 
crushed in his ribs had it struck; but the dog was 
too quick. At last, quite infuriated when he re¬ 
ceived a gash in a hind leg from the hound’s 
razor-like teeth, Silver Tip deserted his human 
prey and made off after his animal tormentor. 
Into the timber both animals vanished. 

“This was Levac’s golden opportunity. He 
got painfully and stiffly to his feet, picked up his 



272 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


gun, and then limped into the cabin, where he 
bandaged up his wounds as best he could. 

“But his dog never came back. On his re¬ 
turn from Mayo, where he had gone to have his 
injuries given expert attention, Levac found the 
luckless hound’s skeleton. Wolves had cleaned 
off the flesh; but the crushed skull and some old 
bear’s tracks of unusual size told the mute story 
of Silver Tip’s guilt as the real killer. 

“When Levac’s story came to us, we deter¬ 
mined to send a man after this great bear which 
was doing so much damage, as evidence had been 
piling up lately showing that it must be this 
animal which had been killing live-stock, de¬ 
stroying camps and fire-boxes belonging to the 
Forest Service, and frightening the whole 
countryside into fits. However, the hunter we 
sent out failed to accomplish anything, and a 
second man was despatched up into the district 
in the spring of 1919. He, too, worked hard to 
get the bear, but without success. 

“Hunter Dan Rowley was then recommended 
to me as an especially good shot who was famil¬ 
iar with the ways of bears. We put him on the 
trail of Silver Tip in the spring of 1920. For a 
long time he was unable to find any fresh signs 
of the grizzly, or to get news of any cattle or 
sheep freshly killed by him. But about the 
middle of July that summer he came upon a cow 




THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 273 

which had been killed a short time before by a 
large animal, presumably Silver Tip himself. 

“During the next four weeks, Rowley applied 
himself to following up the trail of the big 
grizzly—not by track, of course, but by hearsay 
and report. This was not a very difficult task, 
as during this time he ran onto fifteen head of 
cattle mauled by the bear, and every one of the 
animals had been killed in the same manner— 
by a crushing blow between the eyes, from the 
grizzly’s open paw. In most cases the bodies of 
the cattle had not been mutilated, except that 
practically all had been gouged of their liver, a 
toothsome relish for the average grizzly. Great 
holes in their sides showed how the livers had 
been gotten at. Not a scrap of one had been 
left in or about any carcass. 

“By the middle of August, Hunter Rowley 
was sure he was in the immediate neighborhood 
of the big bear. On the 15th, he set a No. 6 
bear-trap on a fresh trail of Silver Tip’s, cover¬ 
ing it up well with leaves, and hanging a calf’s 
liver just above it in plain sight. Attached to 
the trap by a strong chain, also covered with 
leaves, was a ‘drag’ made of a log five inches in 
diameter and twenty-four feet long. 

“A few days later, when the hunter visited the 
trap, he saw that evidently he had been success¬ 
ful at last. The ground was all torn up, the 


274 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


trap was gone entirely, and seven feet of the 
drag had been broken off and probably carried 
away with the grizzly. As Rowley followed the 
trail of the manacled animal through the forest, 
he found many trees six and seven inches 
through which, having been in the bear’s path, 
had been broken off or uprooted. In other 
places, where wind-fallen trees obstructed Silver 
Tip’s course, he had torn out the under logs to 
form a passage way for himself and his unwel¬ 
come burden, the drag. 

“At length, fully eight miles from the spot 
where he had gotten into the trap, the big grizzly 
was found. He was dead. He had struggled 
on and on, against formidable obstacles all that 
way, tearing out hunks of hair on sharp limbs, 
and getting weaker and weaker as the drag 
caught on this log and that, this tree and that, 
and signs showed each time it had thus entangled 
he had come back to free it with his cunning paws 
and mouth, or jerk it loose where he stood. 

When put on the scales he weighed just half 
a ton. His immense front paws measured 8^/2 
inches across, and his hind feet were 12 inches 
long.” 

Carl E. Akeley, a famous big-game hunter 
and naturalist of the United States, has this to 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 2 75 

say of an expedition which he made to European 
hunting-grounds in 1909: 

“We left New York in August, with a com¬ 
mission from the American Museum of Natural 
History to secure specimens of a group of Afri¬ 
can elephants. Our first serious work was be¬ 
gun on the Uasin Gishu Plateau. There we 
hoped to be able to secure the smaller speci¬ 
mens, cow and young elephants, and we also 
dared to hope that a young bull elephant might 
be found on the plateau or in the forests of 
Mount Elgon. But for two weeks we searched 
in vain. We then devoted a month to hunting 
in the region of the Victoria Nile between Ma- 
sinde and Foweiras, where we shot two bulls of 
enormous size, but with tusks weighing only 
about eighty pounds. 

“One evening in Uganda, when rather dis¬ 
couraged after a day of unsuccessful effort, we 
suddenly heard the squeal of an elephant some 
distance away to the eastward. The squealing 
and trumpeting increased in frequency and dis¬ 
tinctness until, in an hour’s time, we realized that 
a large herd was drifting slowly in our direction. 
By eleven o’clock they had come very close— 
some within two hundred yards of camp—and 
on three sides of us. The crashing of trees, and 
the squealing and trumpeting as the animals fed, 



276 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


quarreling over choice morsels, resulted in a din 
such as none of us had ever heard before from 
elephants. Our men kept innumerable fires go¬ 
ing for fear that the elephants might take a no¬ 
tion that night to raid the plantain grove in 
which we were encamped, and to step on a few 
of us with their enormous feet, which would have 
been as disastrous as if a steam-roller had done 
the trick. 

“At daylight the next morning, some of us were 
off with the utmost eagerness, to begin the hunt. 
The herd had drifted down to the forest side, 
forty minutes’ walk from camp; in fact many 
of them had entered the forest. For a couple of 
miles we traveled through a scene of devastation 
such as a cyclone leaves in its wake. All around 
us lay eight-foot grass trampled flat except for 
here and there an ‘island’ which had been 
spared; half of the scattering trees had been 
twisted off like a piece of soft taffy in a boy’s 
hands, and their trunks shone white and stark, 
denuded of all bark and limbs and branches. 

“When about to cross a little gully, we 
thought it wise to stop and study the situation. 
A mass of rocks gave me a good lookout eleva¬ 
tion, and from this point of vantage I discovered 
a cow-elephant only twenty yards away, and 
others all about in the high grass between us and 
the timber. 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 277 

“There was clear passage to a rocky elevation 
a hundred yards to the left, for which we made. 
While standing there, seventy-five feet above the 
level, I received an impression of Africa which 
will never be effaced from my memory. There 
was not a breath of wind; the forest, glistening 
in the morning sunlight, stretched away for 
miles to the east and west and up the slope to 
the north. Here and there in the high grass, 
which intervened between our perch and the 
forest edge, were many elephants, singly and in 
groups, feeding and loafing along, the last of 
them blotted out in the dark shadows of the 
dense forest-side itself. From the gulley, which 
we had but just left, there stalked twenty-five or 
thirty of the great beasts, their bodies glinting 
with a fresh coat of mud and water from the pool 
where they had drunk and bathed. As is usual 
with large herds, they had broken up into small 
bands upon entering the forest, and now, as 
the last of them disappeared into the cover of 
the trees, a fuller appreciation of the surround¬ 
ings came upon me. From a mile or more in 
either direction there came a reverberating roar 
and crash as the great hordes of monsters 
plowed their way through the tangles of vege¬ 
tation, smashing trees as they argued, played, 
and fed, along the way. 

“Where the little stream at the bottom of the 


278 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


gulley entered the forest, troops of black and 
white Colobus-monkeys were racing about the 
trees, shrilly scolding the huge invaders of their 
domain. From the tree-tops deeper in the 
forest, two or three troops of chimpanzees yelled, 
baboons barked, and great-hornbills did their 
best to drown all other noises with their own dis¬ 
cordant protests. 

“All at once a cow-elephant at the edge of the 
forest just in front of us uttered her peculiar 
shrill scream of warning. Not only her own 
kind, but all the other forest folk, paid heed; and 
in an instant all was silent over that vast stretch 
of grass and trees, where but a moment before 
the noises had been so appalling. 

“Then came a rustling sound—very gentle, 
like that produced by leaves stirred by a 
vagrant breeze, only to increase in volume until 
presently it was like a mighty windstorm howl¬ 
ing through myriads of tree-tops. 

“I looked about to see whence it came, scour¬ 
ing the forest far and near with my glasses. 
But not a leaf seemed stirring. Then I realized 
the truth: that the mighty sound was made by 
countless elephants on the move, hastening away 
from danger—made by the scuffling of their 
ponderous feet among the dry leaves on the 
ground; by their great sides crowding back 



THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 279 

other leaves, equally dry, attached to the bushes 
and saplings along their course. 

“With my gun-bearers I went down into the 
forest. Trails crossed and crisscrossed in all di¬ 
rections, so that it was impossible to follow a cer¬ 
tain trail any distance. A band of a dozen or so 
elephants got our wind, and passed us in con¬ 
fusion at close range, but the bush was so dense 
that I had but small glimpses of them and did 
not care to risk a shot. 

“A mile into the forest brought us to an ir¬ 
regular clearing, almost bisected by a ‘penin¬ 
sula’ of forest. At the base of this tongue I 
nearly ran against a young bull—one of a con¬ 
siderable number, as I soon discovered. The 
whole herd began working toward the point of 
the ‘peninsula,’ and I ran along the outer edge 
to head them off. Just as the leader emerged 
from the point, they saw or winded us,—shifty, 
uncertain breezes had sprung up,—and they 
turned back, at which I ran into the timber 
to try for a better view of them. I soon found 
myself facing a cow which, solicitous for her very 
young calf, had wheeled about, all attention and 
menacing. 

“Fortunately, at the moment we were par¬ 
tially screened behind a clump of small frees. As 
we remained motionless, the cow’s fears were 



280 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


soon allayed. Turning, she gave the calf a 
boost with her trunk, and followed after it and 
the herd, uttering occasional motherly com¬ 
mands to it, apparently, to ‘hustle along, my 
dear.’ 

“Hurrying out and around the point, I found 
that the herd had gained the clearing and 
rounded itself up in close mass formation, obvi¬ 
ously conscious of the presence of an unseen 
enemy—ourselves. There were about twenty- 
five elephants, mostly cows; and just as I was on 
the point of backing off to a safe distance, after 
taking several pictures, I espied a fine bull, with 
beautiful tusks, on the near side of the line. A 
clump of bushes offered concealment for a closer 
approach, and by this means I got up to within 
twenty yards of him, from whence I got a good 
photograph. As his front leg was thrust for¬ 
ward, offering an excellent vital shot at the 
heart, I fired both barrels of my powerful rifle 
in quick succession. 

“Instantly all was commotion in the herd. I 
seized my second rifle, and expecting them to 
charge, retreated very hastily to the top of an 
ant-hill, from which I could better view the 
herd. 

“Then it was that I witnessed a scene such as 
I had heard described by natives and which I 
had been keen to verify. The bull I had shot 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 881 

had fallen thirty yards from the spot where I 
had hit him. Around him were clustered a num¬ 
ber of cows, every one of which was doing her 
level best to raise him to his feet with tusks and 
trunks; the remainder of the cows were doing 
patrol duty, rushing about in an increasing and 
uneasy circle, searching for the source of 
trouble. That meant vie; so I retired to a safer 
distance. 

“For over an hour the bull’s cordon of pro¬ 
tectors and first-aid volunteers hung around 
him, until he expired. Then they swung sadly 
off, and we came forth to claim our trophy. We 
found that this bull stood 11 feet 4 inches high 
at the shoulders, and the tusks weighed 95 and 
110 pounds respectively, while the circumference 
of the front foot around the sole was 67^> inches. 

“But I was not done with this great herd. 
The following day we went into the forest again, 
and soon came up with its rear, although in a 
cover so dense that a close inspection could not 
be made. We worked about them for hours, 
and finally succeeded in driving them out into 
the open; but unfortunately the grass was high 
and I had scarcely succeeded in gaining a point 
of vantage when, with angry grunts, they 
doubled back to the forest. 

“As I turned to follow, my attention was 
called to a commotion in the bush at the edge of 


282 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


the timber some four hundred yards to the left. 
Another herd was coming out into the grass¬ 
lands! From the top of a nearby ant-hill I saw 
them distinctly as they passed over a rise fifty 
yards away. There were eleven cows. I 
waited a few moments, thinking that, as often 
happens, a bull might follow in their wake. The 
cows had passed on to a distance of about four 
hundred yards, and I was about to leave the ant¬ 
hill and return to camp, when, from the direction 
of the cows, there came a low, ominous rumble 
like distant thunder. We knew a charge was 
coming. 

“A hasty glance around convinced us that 
there was but one thing to do, and that was, to 
stand and meet the charge right where we were, 
as here we could have at least the advantage of 
witnessing the entire advance of the elephants. 
If we tried to escape to one side, or to the forest, 
we knew we could not see them over the high 
grass and bushes before they would be upon us. 

“The rumbling was repeated two or three 
times, increasing in volume. It was followed by 
a wild shriek, uttered by a single cow, where¬ 
upon ten others took it up, making a frightful, 
blood-curdling din for our ears. Then the herd 
suddenly charged toward us. 

“They came half-way, and stopped. It was 
easy to see by their confused actions that they 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 283 


had lost the wind. But it was only a moment 
that our hearts fluttered hopefully. The ele¬ 
phants once more caught the scent, and roaring 
and screaming with redoubled energy, came 
plunging on. 

“It was a disconcerting spectacle for us, to 
say the least. Their great ears were at full 
spread, like so many electrified fans; their pon¬ 
derous bodies swung ominously at every for¬ 
ward thrust of the stout gray legs; their thick 
trunks thrashed wildly; the white tusks gleamed 
wickedly in the bright sunshine; their little eyes 
seemed to spit fire; and from their pink mouths 
continued to come those unnerving, horrible 
screams. I remember that I felt very home¬ 
sick just then! 

“We now saw that, were they to continue in a 
straight course, they would pass our position by 
about forty yards, for they had not yet actually 
seen us; then a dash on our part to one side, and 
we could lose them and be safe. But when they 
were nearly opposite us, they either got their 
eyes on us or winded us afresh, for they wheeled 
straight toward us, with renewed shrieks and 
trumpetings. 

“A shot from my big cordite .404 rifle stopped 
the leader; but encouraged by the others, she 
came on, only to be knocked down by my second 
shot. Luckily we kept out of sight. As soon 


284 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


as she fell, the others paused, and began sniffing 
around her. Then, to our great relief, they 
helped her to her feet, and the next moment all 
were bolting away. Even the old cow I had 
shot made an attempt to follow, and limpingly 
succeeded.” 

During the last few decades in Africa, hun¬ 
dreds of white hunters and thousands of native 
hunters have been killed or wounded by lions, 
buffaloes, elephants, rhinoceri, and other large 
and ferocious beasts. All are dangerous; each 
species has to its gruesome credit a long list of 
mighty hunters slain or disabled. Among those 
competent to pass judgment there is the widest 
difference of opinion as to the comparative 
danger in hunting the several kinds of animals. 
Probably no other hunter who has ever lived has 
combined Selous’s experience with his skill as a 
hunter and his power of accurate observation. 
He has killed between three and four hundred 
lions, elephants, buffaloes, and rhinos, and he 
ranks the lion as much the most dangerous and 
the rhino as much the least. Governor Jack- 
son puts the buffalo first in formidableness; 
Drummond considers the honor belongs to the 
rhino; while Samuel Baker speaks strongly for 
the elephant. 

On March 23, 1909,—the same year Akeley 








































. 















THE ‘BIG-GAME HUNTER 285 


had his adventure with elephants—Theodore 
Roosevelt, then one of this country’s most 
prominent statesmen and foremost amateur big- 
game hunters, sailed from New York at the head 
of a scientific expedition organized in the in¬ 
terests of the Smithsonian Institute and National 
Museum at Washington. In addition to himself 
the party consisted of his son Kermit, a young 
man just entering college, and three naturalists: 
Surgeon-Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, U. S. 
A., retired; Mr. Edmund Heller, and Mr. J. 
Alden Loring. On landing they were met by 
R. J. Cunninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both 
famous hunters, and as they worked their way 
inland from Mombasa they made frequent so¬ 
journs at the homes of English residents, who 
accompanied them upon many highly interest¬ 
ing and successful forays into the surrounding 
country. 

Everywhere throughout the section they were 
crossing, in the neighborhood of Nairobi, were 
signs that the lion was lord and that his reign 
was cruel. Ostrich farms were great sufferers 
from the bold marauders, and cattle and sheep 
were also a frequent prey. Here and there 
were wild victims, too, such as the half-devoured 
carcases of the kongoni, zebras, and hartebeests. 

“One day,” writes Mr. Roosevelt in his book 
African Game Trails , 1 “we started from the 


286 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ranch-house for an all-day lion hunt. Besides 
Kermit and myself there was a fellow-guest, 
Medlicott; our host, Sir Alfred, and his wife and 
daughter, also Percival, who had with him a little 
mongrel bull-dog and a Masai “boy,” the latter 
a sort of native servant of Percival’s. 

“After lunch we began to beat down a long 
donga, or dry water-course, shouting and yell¬ 
ing, in the hope of scaring out a lion or two. 
Soon we came upon lion spoor in the sandy bed; 
first the footprints of a big male, then those of 
a lioness. Presently the dogs—for, besides the 
little bull, we had a large brindled mongrel 
named Ben, whose courage belied his looks—be¬ 
gan to show signs of scenting the lions; and we 
beat each patch of brush harder than ever, the 
natives throwing in stones, while we stood ready, 
fingers on triggers. 

“After a couple of false alarms the dogs drew 
toward one patch, their hair bristling. In a 
moment one of the boys called, ‘SimbaF (lion), 
and pointed with his finger. I shifted my posi¬ 
tion, and peered eagerly into the bushes until 
I caught sight of a bit of tawny hide. As it 
moved, there was a call from my comrades to 
‘shoot,’ for at that near distance, if the lion 
charged, there would be scant opportunity to 

i Quotations from African Game Trails, by Theodore Roosevelt, 
are made by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribners’ Sons. 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 287 


stop him. So I fired into what I saw. There 
was a commotion in the bushes, at which Kermit 
also fired. 

“Immediately there broke out on the other 
side, not the hoped-for big lion, but two cubs 
the size of mastiffs. Each was badly wounded, 
and we finished them off. Even if unwounded, 
they were too big to take alive. 

“This was a great disappointment, as it was 
well on in the afternoon, and there seemed not 
much likelihood of another chance at a lion that 
day. Percival set out ahead, for the house, and 
the rest of us trailed along by another route. 
Presently we reached another donga, with oc¬ 
casional big brush patches along its shallow- 
watered, winding bed. Almost as soon as we 
reached it our leader found the spoor of two big 
lions; and, with every sense acock, we dis¬ 
mounted and approached the first patch of tall 
bushes. We shouted and threw in stones, but 
nothing came out; and another patch showed the 
same result. Then we mounted our horses 
again, and rode toward another patch a quarter 
of a mile off. I was mounted on Tranquility, 
the stout and quiet sorrel. 

“This patch of thick brush we also cast stones 
into. The response was immediate. Loud 
growls came out of the shrubbery; there was the 
sound of cracking twigs. 


288 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


“Instantly we dismounted, and waited, our 
guns ready. Then right in front of me, thirty 
yards off, a big maneless lion leaped out of the 
patch. Crack! It was my Winchester which 
spoke, and as the soft-nosed, big-calibre bullet 
plowed forward through his flank, the lion 
swerved so that I missed him with my second 
shot; but my third bullet went through his spine 
and forward into his chest. Down he came, 
sixty yards away, his hind quarters dragging, 
his head up, his ears back, his jaws open; his 
lips drawn back in an ugly snarl, as he faced us. 
Kermit, Sir Alfred, and I fired, almost together, 
into his chest. His head sank, and he died. 

“At the same time that this lion had come out 
on the left of the bushes, the other had appeared 
from the right of them. The latter had not been 
hit, and we saw him bounding off across the 
plain, six or eight hundred yards away. A 
couple of shots were sent after him, only to miss. 
So we mounted our horses, determined to run 
him down if it were possible. The going was 
slightly downhill; we gained rapidly. Finding 
this out, the lion suddenly halted and came to 
bay in a slight hollow where the grass was rather 
long. 

“Kermit and I tried shooting from our 
mounts, but at such a distance—150 yards—this 
was ineffective. Then we dismounted, but 


THE BIG-GAME HUNTER 289 


could not make out the animal in the long grass 
with sufficient distinctness to insure a good shot. 

“By this time Old Ben, the dog, had arrived, 
and, barking loudly, was strolling around the 
lion, which paid not the slightest attention to 
him. Just then my black sais, Simba, came run¬ 
ning up to me and took hold of the bridle—a 
most plucky action, for he was entirely without 
a mount and there was no other sais or gun- 
hearer anywhere near, the others having fallen 
behind. The lion now took a notion to stand 
up, looking first at one horse and then the other 
as our party gathered up. His tail lashed to 
and fro, his head was held low, while his harsh 
and savage growling rolled thunderously over 
the plain. 

“Seeing Simba and me on foot, he all at once 
turned toward us, his tail lashing quicker and 
quicker. Resting my elbow on Simba’s bent 
shoulder, I took steady aim and pressed the trig¬ 
ger. The bullet went in between the neck and 
shoulder, and the lion fell over on his side, one 
foreleg in the air. He recovered in a moment, 
evidently very much hurt, and once more faced 
me, growling hoarsely. I thought he was on the 
point of charging, so I fired once more. This 
shot broke his back, and the next killed him out¬ 
right. 

“It was late before we got the lions skinned. 


290 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Night fell, and the stalwart savages who carried 
the bloody lion pelts strapped to poles, chanted 
in unison as they followed us home—chanted the 
native hunting-song in that monotonous, rhyth¬ 
mical manner of their kind, so weird to the white 
man and so inspiring to the black.” 


VIII 


THE WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 

T HOSE are wonderful pictures which 
George Shiras, 3d, has taken. In get¬ 
ting these photographs of birds and wild 
animals in their native haunts, he has displayed 
three qualities common to all famous wild-life 
photographers—courage, resourcefulness, and a 
marvelous amount of patience. Had Shiras, 
and other camera hunters, shot down a hundred 
times as many birds and animals as they have 
shot at, their names never would have been 
known to us. Their “guns” have recorded life 
instead of taking it; their “weapons” may 
frighten, but they never maim nor kill; and the 
trophy of a hunt is a trophy hard-earned, well- 
earned, and capable of bringing to its owner a 
joy that contains not one single twinge of re¬ 
morsefulness. 

George Shiras, 3d, comes from a paternal an- 

cestrage who have been as much devoted to the 

wilds as himself. For instance, his grandfather, 

George Shiras, 1st, trod the shores of Lake 

Superior from the time he was a boy until he was 

291 


292 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


eighty-nine years old. And his father, George 
Shiras, 2d, who is a Justice of the United States 
Supreme Court and an ardent fly-fisherman and 
nature-lover, still continues his annual trips up 
into this charming, beforested country of North¬ 
ern Michigan, although the old gentleman is now 
in his ninety-first year. 

It was my good fortune to meet George 
Shiras, 3d, at his pretty little home just a few 
days after his return from a successful picture¬ 
taking jaunt around the headwaters of the St. 
Marys River. He was in a most receptive 
frame of mind for my bombardment of ques¬ 
tions, brimming over with enthusiastic remem¬ 
brances of recent experiences, and was not at all 
reluctant to recount stories of his wanderings 
with a camera. 

“Mr. Shiras,” asked I, very early in our talk, 
“were you ever a hunter? That is, did you ever 
carry a gun for the sole purpose of taking the 
life of a bird or wild animal?” 

He looked sober, as he replied: “I would 
rather you had not asked that question. I like 
to forget that part of my woods life. But since 
you have asked, I will be frank enough to admit 
that I used to tread the woods with a gun instead 
of a camera, although I shall never do it again. 
In this connection let me say that a sportsman’s 
life consists largely of three elements—anticipa- 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 293 


tion, realization, and reminiscence. First, there 
is the look forward to the trip by rail, by canoe, 
and then perhaps a tramp on foot into the heart 
of the wilderness. This is followed by the camp 
and its pleasant surroundings, and that memor¬ 
able day when the early morning sun casts a 
glint upon the branching antlers of a mighty 
moose as, half-concealed in the thicket, he fur¬ 
tively browses his way along; the breathless wait 
until the neck or shoulder becomes exposed; the 
shot—and then success, which may come in¬ 
stantly by death, or slowly and intoxicatingly 
by a scramble after the wounded beast on a 
blood-stained trail. 

‘‘What a fine thing it would be for all such 
so-called sportsmen if they could realize that 
what is game to the rifle is game to the camera! 
Nearly every hunter will admit that the instant 
his noble quarry lies prone on the earth, with the 
glaze of death fast-dimming the once lustrous 
eyes, the graceful limbs twisted in the convulsions 
of death, and the tiny hole emitting the crimson 
flow of life, there comes the half-defined feeling 
of repentance and sorrow.” 

I nodded in sympathy. I, too, had once been 
tortured by conscience as I had looked down at 
my prey. Shiras, knew what he was talking 
about! 

“If a fellow has that feeling, he had better 


294 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


quit doing the thing that causes it,” went on 
Shiras. “Much of the game that is killed is 
taken for the pure so-called sport of it, rather 
than for purposes of food or scientific study; and 
that is all wrong. Such fellows deserve a pang 
of remorse every time they shoot down one of 
God’s wild creatures—and they get it! Surely 
no sane man travels a thousand miles, indifferent 
to time, labor, and expense, to get a few hundred 
pounds of wild meat, which in all probability is 
not nearly so toothsome as the domestic cuts in 
the markets of his own home town. Every 
camera-hunter will admit, even though he has 
been a successful sportsman, that there is more 
immediate and lasting pleasure in photograph¬ 
ing a deer at twenty yards than there is in driv¬ 
ing a chunk of lead through his heart at one 
hundred yards. Then think of the unlimited 
freedom of this noiseless weapon! No closed 
season, no restriction in numbers or methods of 
transportation, no license, no posted land, no 
professional etiquette in the manner of taking 
your game. You can pull on a swimming moose 
or a bear floundering in the snow; you can take 
a crack at a spotted fawn as it disports about its 
fond mother; you can bag Daddy Blue-jay as 
he brings a worm to his wee children in the nest. 
Or you can string out your cameras, with a 



© W. H. Bohlman and H. T. Finley 
Photo from Wide World Photos 


PHOTOGRAPH OF AN OREGON BOBCAT 




WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 295 


thread across the runway, and gather in the ex¬ 
posed game-laden plates at nightfall without 
any scruples of being called a pot-hunter.” 

“You’d make a regular hunter ashamed of 
himself,” I remarked; “if not that, then mighty 
envious.” 

“By and by,” continued Shiras, “you will have 
a collection of pictures affording far more en¬ 
joyment than all the mental ghosts of slaugh¬ 
tered quadrupeds and all the moth-eaten relics 
of the gun that were ever assembled.” 

“Then do you not think that the time has come 
when the photographing of wild life must be 
recognized as a legitimate sport?” 

“I certainly do,” was the sententious reply of 
my companion. “There never was a time in the 
history of the world when a greater curb has 
been put on nimrods and more encouragement 
offered to picture-takers than to-day. Travel 
has become easy, even into comparatively remote 
parts of the universe; cameras are inexpensive, 
not very difficult to learn to operate; and there 
is an increasing market for good pictures. 
These conditions have resulted in giving us quite 
an array of famous wild-life photographers, 
among whom I might mention Dugmore, Dim¬ 
ock, Wallahan, Chapman, and Kearton, whose 
intimate pictures of creatures of the woods have 


290 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


undoubtedly done more to influence the public 
against a wanton slaughter of the innocents than 
any other single thing.” 

“Mr. Shiras, what attributes would you say a 
man ought to have in order to become a success¬ 
ful wild-life photographer?” I asked. 

“First—patience; second—ingenuity; third— 
a considerable knowledge of the birds and ani¬ 
mals he seeks. Indeed, the photographic sports¬ 
man is required to stand greater hardships, ex¬ 
pose himself to greater danger, and must be far 
more proficient in the difficult art of stalking, 
than the man who hunts with a rifle. Shooting 
animals is so much easier than photographing 
them that there is no possible comparison. As I 
intimated, for years I was as enthusiastic 
about shooting as any fellow could be; to¬ 
day, after twenty odd years of hunting with 
a camera, I have lost all desire to kill. It 
is not sufficiently exciting—usually too easy 
to be interesting. Every animal that is near 
enough to be successfully photographed is 
near enough to be shot with a good revolver; 
but every animal that can be shot cannot always 
be snapped; in fact ninety-nine out of every 
hundred savage animals that are killed are prob¬ 
ably too far away for the camera-man to register 
on his sensitive film or plate. In all cases the 
camera requires all the proficiency, and affords 


WILD LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 297 


all the pleasure, that a steady hand and a deadly 
weapon ever gave a lover of the gun, and more 
besides. It is only within the last few years that 
compact photographic appliances, quick shut¬ 
ters, rapid dry-plates and films, have made pos¬ 
sible successful work on large game—or some of 
us might have reformed long ago.” 

“I understand you were a pioneer in this form 
of photography,” I remarked. 

“I believe they do say I was among the first to 
make a specialized study of wild-life photog¬ 
raphy,” was the modest admittance. “But what¬ 
ever my contribution toward an album of wild¬ 
life pictures, started along about 1890, other 
nature-photographers have more than kept the 
ball a-rolling. The truth is, a year or two after 
this date Wallahan, of Colorado, on his own 
initiative and with an ordinary tripod camera, 
succeeded in getting a remarkably beautiful se¬ 
ries of the mule-deer during their descent from 
the mountains that fall; and later, with better 
equipment, he recorded many other animals in 
his State. He was followed by Chapman.” 

“Is he not the same Chapman who is one of 
our leading ornithologists?” 

“The very same. And Chapman began pic¬ 
turing his first birds in the early Nineties. At 
the present time his collection of self-made 
photographs is not surpassed by any individual’s 


298 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

in the world. Chapman’s exploits were followed 
by similar ones by Kearton, of England, who 
soon became the foremost bird-photographer 
across the seas.” 

“But,” I protested, “you were not idle your¬ 
self all these years, Mr. Shiras. Pray tell me 
what you were doing—what you have been do¬ 
ing from 1890 to the present time, some thirty 
odd years.” 

He laughed pleasantly, arose, and returned 
with a large album marked “Night Pictures,” 
which he laid across my knees. “A portion of 
those thirty odd years have been spent in getting 
the negatives from which these prints were 
made,” said he. “Other portions of my spare 
time have been put in taking hundreds of other 
night pictures, many of which have appeared in 
American magazines. In the beginning I was 
captivated with daylight photography in the 
wilds. Now, though I still take such photo¬ 
graphs, the lure is as nothing compared to the 
charm and witchery of having the animals them¬ 
selves take their pictures for me in the dark of 
the forest night.” 

I had turned back the album cover and se¬ 
cured a glimpse of the first night picture—that 
of a lithe-limbed little doe feeding on the bank 
of an inland lake in whose limpid waters the 
jack-light had projected a wonderfully alluring 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 299 

midnight reflection of the animal. The Stygian 
background; the softly-etched outlines of the 
deer in the middleground, as it browsed in en¬ 
hancing innocence on the short herbage leading 
up to a moon-flooded bunch of marsh reeds; and 
the inverted image of the night-wanderer in the 
foreground of cool waters, held me spellbound. 
As George Shiras made a movement to speak, 
involuntarily I raised a warning hand toward 
him and whispered, “Hush!” as though he might 
say something to alarm the feeding doe. 

For ten or fifteen minutes I turned from page 
to page of the book without a word, intensely 
interested and absorbed. Such unusual pic¬ 
tures! Such rare, such intimate views into the 
very thoughts, almost, of the birds and animals 
before me! I realized, without the naturalist 
telling me, that here, and here, and here, and 
here, I was looking at wild creatures in their na¬ 
tive haunts, wild creatures which were acting in 
a perfectly natural manner—acting as they acted 
among themselves, and when they were alone, or 
when alarmed by a suspicious sound. You 
couldn’t look at those pictures of contentment 
and peace and startlement without a terribly 
guilty feeling, if you had ever killed an animal 
without need. You couldn’t look at them— 
ever!—and then go out and shoulder a gun 
again. 


300 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


I saw a ruffed grouse, clucking and spreading 
her tail as she plucked fruit from a wild-cherry 
tree; I saw another grouse, with crop filled with 
mountain-ash berries, dozing in the sun-struck 
top of a tree at the edge of the woods; I saw a 
yearling buck which had unconsciously posed for 
the first successful flashlight photograph of a 
wild animal ever made. I saw more. I saw a 
flashlight of a mother deer and her twin fawns, 
all wading in the still waters when people sleep 
—a picture which took the Gold Medal at the 
World’s Fair in Paris, 1900, and the Grand 
Prize at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. I 
saw a wonderful picture in which a buck, a doe, 
and a fawn had become startled, and had been 
caught by the camera in the air at once—not a 
hoof touching the ground by at least three feet, 
as they took prodigious bounds in as many dif¬ 
ferent directions. It seemed as if these beauti¬ 
ful creatures were impelled by invisible wings, 
so easy was their glide through space. How 
wonderfully suggestive of suppleness was the 
contour of those floating bodies! How airily and 
gracefully were held the slender legs, awaiting 
the ground-strike, expectant of the lightning- 
like rush off through the dark woods to a spot of 
greater promise of safety! 

I saw more. I saw the picture of a thieving 
doe taken by herself in the act of eating cab- 



WILD LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 301 


bages at night in a settler’s garden. I saw a 
lone beaver repairing a dam at midnight. I saw 
another beaver industriously girdling a black-ash 
tree, with which he intended to build a dam. I 
saw still another beaver, plastering his home with 
mud. All in all, what I looked at in that album 
was a galaxy of night-life in the great forest 
which was so eloquent of wild and untamed crea¬ 
tures that it seemed to me I must have been set 
down in their midst. 

My host, explained each picture as I came 
to it, and a more entrancing series of short 
stories I never expect to hear again. When 
we had reached the back cover of the album, he 
went into another room and returned with an old- 
style box camera, which he put in my hands 
with the remark: “This is my first camera. It 
came into my possession in the late Eighties, and 
is called the ‘Schmidt Detective camera.’ The 
lens is a high-grade rectilinear of the Dallmeyer 
stamp, as you will note. The shutter is fairly 
rapid, and can be set and released by this string 
and button on the outside of the camera. This 
apparatus, crude as it may be in general appear¬ 
ance, quite equals the modern cameras in short- 
range effectiveness; in fact, for my early pur¬ 
poses it was quite ideal, as the plate-holders and 
lens are inclosed in a light-tight, waterproof 
box. 


302 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


“Using this camera during the second season 
I was able to get several good pictures of deer. 
The lens, however, was of such short focus that 
it was necessary to get within twenty-five feet 
of an animal for satisfactory results, and this 
was difficult in bright sunlight. So then I tried 
sitting in a blind near a runway, or where the 
deer came to feed; but the shifting currents of 
air usually indicated my presence before the 
quarry approached close enough, and they 
bounded away. 

“During subsequent seasons this difficulty was 
overcome by running a thread across a runway or 
the beaches, with the camera concealed a short 
distance away and accurately focused on the 
spot the animal must pass if he tripped the shut¬ 
ter. In this manner I obtained some very ex¬ 
cellent pictures. Later, when leaving the cam¬ 
era out all day, it could be reset for night with 
a flashlight connected. Thus it was at work at 
times for twenty-four hours at a clip—an impor¬ 
tant advantage when you are in a remote wilder¬ 
ness for only a brief time. 

“Another of my methods was to place two or 
three cameras in different parts of a slough; and 
when an animal passed in front of one camera 
the shutter was released by pulling a string 
suspended through screw-eyes on saplings and 
running thence to a scaffold in a tree overhang- 


mm 



PHOTOGRAPH OF A COYOTE, INHABITANT OF THE DRIEST PART OF 

THE UNITED STATES 








WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 303 


ing the water. If it were a deer which sauntered 
along, I would give a shrill whistle, and he would 
come to a startled pause, with an alert look, 
which made a capital picture when I pulled the 
string.” 

“What led you to attempt photographing 
deer, Mr. Shiras, as your very first subjects?” 
I asked curiously. “I should think it would 
have been much easier for you to have gotten 
pictures of birds, porcupines, rabbits, and the 
like. Isn’t a deer one of the most elusive photo¬ 
graphic subjects?” 

“Well,” he said, smiling, “the explanation is 
simple. Of course a deer is one of the most 
difficult animals to photograph; but, as I have 
already said, I was previously very fond of hunt¬ 
ing deer with a gun, and when the revulsion 
came and I took up the camera for a ‘weapon,’ 
I quite naturally made my first shots with the 
new tool at the animal I loved most of all to 
stalk.” 

“How did you happen to take up night-pho¬ 
tography ?” 

“Having made daylight pictures of deer in 
various ways, I began to wonder if it were not 
possible to make pictures at night, when the deer 
were much more active and could be approached 
more easily than at other times. I spoke to my 
guide, Jake Brown, about this, and he was much 


304 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


interested, but jokingly advised me to shoot the 
deer first and take its picture afterward. This 
shows what little faith Jake had in the possibil¬ 
ities of taking an animal’s picture after night¬ 
fall. But I meant business, and set to work im¬ 
provising the first flashlight apparatus ever used 
on a wild creature. A small hole was made in 
a tin plate. In the hole I placed a strip of oiled 
paper which would burn readily when ignited 
underneath; and on top was placed a quantity 
of magnesium-powder. 

“So far as getting within range went, my first 
effort was entirely successful. Jake and I pad- 
died slowly along the shore of Whitefish Lake, 
with a jack-light in the prow of our canoe, hop¬ 
ing the light would illuminate a deer and hold 
him spellbound long enough for me to operate 
my flashlight and camera. At the lower end of 
the lake, we suddenly espied our deer, sure 
enough,—a handsome buck. But just as the 
lower end of the paper fuse began burning, the 
buck ran off with a snort of disapproval, the 
flash taking place after he was out of sight 
among the trees. Jake guffawed loudly at this, 
and I was irritated enough to have pushed him 
out backwards into the lake had he been a good 
swimmer, which he was not. That same night I 
managed to get a shot at a doe, the negative 
showing a well-defined body and a blurry head. 


WILD LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 305 


Other attempts at flashlight work the following 
night were marked by similar poor results; my 
pictures were next to worthless for the same 
reason as the first, my powder being too slow for 
so active a creature as a deer. 

“During the ensuing winter I learned of a 
flashlight apparatus designed for taking pictures 
in theaters, ball-rooms, and other large interiors. 
It consisted of a metal standard supporting 
three circular alcohol lamps, into the flames of 
which could be projected a spray of magnesium- 
powder by means of a rubber bulb connected by 
tubing to a cup containing enough powder for a 
half-dozen such flashes as I was used to. This 
apparatus, with its great power of illumination 
and ease of manipulation, seemed just the very 
thing I wanted for my own work, so I quickly 
invested in one of them.” 

“The modern flashlight 'guns’ I have seen are 
made somewhat upon that same principle,” I 
remarked. 

“Yes; it was a good one, but it had its defects 
in detail, as you shall see. On the first dark of 
the moon on the following July, Jake and I left 
camp in a canoe, with the new outfit in the bow. 
As we rounded the first bend, a pair of glowing 
eyes attracted our attention, and in a moment I 
had set the three lamps ablaze and covered the 
jack-light. When we approached, the deer 


306 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

jumped to one side. This maneuver required 
changing the canoe’s course, for I had not then 
in use a revolving tripod table, capable of cover¬ 
ing any sidewise movement of an animal, such as 
this one you just looked at. As I turned to 
whisper paddling instructions to Jake, my elbow 
unfortunately caught on the rubber tubing, and 
the entire flashlight apparatus was toppled over 
into the bow. The fall detached the cap of the 
reservoir; all the powder spilled out, some going 
on my wet rubber boots (wet from a recent por¬ 
tage,) and the rest went into the bottom of the 
canoe, where the lamps set it on fire. 

“Well, sir, there was a tremendous explosion 
of the dry powder in the bow. At the same 
time it ignited the damper portion on my boots, 
causing such a furious and brilliant spluttering, 
and such a cloud of stifling smoke, that I leaped 
overboard for relief. That was Jake’s chance 
to laugh at me again—and the way that fellow 
did roar, sitting in the stern safely out of reach 
of the powder, was a caution! I thought he 
would tumble out of his seat, the way he rocked 
and took on. Standing in the water waist-deep, 
I made no attempt to clamber back in the 
canoe until that rank smoke had cleared away 
and the pyrotechnics had exhausted themselves. 

“In the succeeding months, experiments were 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 307 


made with a new powder, called ‘Blitz-pulver,’ 
—a compound possessing great brilliancy and 
rapidity,—but no suitable apparatus for touch¬ 
ing it off had been devised. Somehow, the idea 
of a device in the shape of a pistol suggested it¬ 
self to me. During the winter I made a tin box 
an inch deep and seven by four inches in length 
and width. Under the box was a trigger. 
When the finger pressed this, gunlike, it tripped 
a spring which forced a firing-pin against a 
capped but empty pistol cartridge. This car¬ 
tridge’s further end communicated with a pill¬ 
box containing a half-ounce of Blitz-pulver 
powder. 

“It was in July, 1891, when with this contriv¬ 
ance, I obtained the first successful flashlight 
ever made of a deer. John Hammer, a Nor¬ 
wegian, was my paddler upon this occasion; and 
by some strange coincidence the photograph 
was taken only a few feet from the very spot 
where, as a boy, my gun had cracked and 
brought down my first buck. 

“The yearling buck I now saw viewed the ap¬ 
proaching jack-light with unusual curiosity, rais¬ 
ing and lowering his head, as if to look under or 
over the light. Just as his neck was craned and 
his stately head elevated, I pressed the trigger 
of my queer little pistol. There was an immense 


308 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


flash, the deer and myself being equally blinded, 
for at that time I had not learned the advantage 
of closing one eye when the explosion was ex¬ 
pected. How eagerly I hurried back to camp 
to develop that plate! How my heart jumped 
with gladness when I saw on the glass the per¬ 
fect image of the little buck, with the foreground 
of reeds and the background of alders and cedar 
—the picture you saw in this album only a mo¬ 
ment ago!” 

“This night-photography in the wilds must be 
alluring sport,” I observed. “I would give a 
good deal to accompany you on one of these 
expeditions, Mr. Shiras.” 

“You are right; it is a most alluring sport— 
one that beats gunning all to smithereens; and 
some day I shall be glad to have you go along 
with me and my guide and see just how the work 
is done. For your information now I will men¬ 
tion some of the things a wild-life photographer 
runs up against. Selecting a dark, warm night, 
a flashlight-hunter prepares his cameras, lights 
the jack-lamp, loads his flashlight apparatus 
with magnesium-powder; and in his canoe, with 
his paddler, he pushes out into the silent, brood¬ 
ing waters of the lake or river. The paddle 
sends the light boat ahead so easily that no sound 
is heard except a gentle ripple, unnoticeable a 
boat’s length away. The wooded banks are 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 309 


wrapped in deepest shadow, only the sky-line 
along the crest showing their course. 

“At the bow of the canoe the bright eye of the 
jack-light is turning from side to side, manipu¬ 
lated by your own hand. It cuts a channel of 
light through the banks of darkness, bringing 
into silvery relief, as it sweeps the shores, the 
trunks of the trees and the delicate tracery of 
the foliage. 

“Soon your ears detect the sound of a deer as 
it feeds among the lily-beds that fringe the 
banks. Knee-deep in the water, the deer is mov¬ 
ing contentedly about, munching his supper of 
succulent green leaves—but this act is a closed 
book to you until, suddenly, the lantern turns in¬ 
quisitively on its pivot and the powerful rays of 
the light flood the shore-line whence the strange 
noises have come. 

“Then two bright balls shine back from under 
the overhanging foliage: a hundred yards away 
the deer has raised his head and is wondering 
what mysterious luminous thing this is which lies 
out yonder on the surface of the water. Invis¬ 
ible of body and limbs, his eyes seem ghostily 
suspended in the opaque curtain of shadow lying 
at his back. 

“Straight toward those burning balls of fire 
your paddler sends the canoe, in firm, silent 
strokes. Now you are only seventy-five yards 


310 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


away; now only fifty. The movement of the 
canoe is checked till it is gliding forward almost 
imperceptibly. At this point, if you were a 
hunter with a gun, there would be a red spurt of 
fire from under the jack-light, and the stricken 
deer probably would be struggling and plunging 
toward the brush as its life-blood ebbed away; 
but there is no sound or sign of life—only the 
slowly gaining light. 

“Twenty-five yards now! You are revolving 
in your mind the question, Will he stand a mo¬ 
ment longer? You have raised the flashlight ap¬ 
paratus well above any obstructions in the front 
of the canoe; the powder lies in the pan ready to 
ignite at the first pull of the trigger. 

“Closer comes the boat. Still those translu¬ 
cent eyeballs in the shadows ahead continue to 
watch your jack-light, quite fascinated by it. 

“Now! Your finger crooks over the trigger. 
It begins to press ever so gently, while your 
heart thumps excitedly—far more excitedly than 
if you were holding a firearm. Bang! That 
sound, as sharp and thrilling as the crack of a 
rifle, is the explosion. In answer to it a great 
fan of dazzling white light spreads out from you. 
With lightning-like rapidity it bathes the waters 
ahead—encompasses the stag, the banks, the 
trees; all stand sharply out for a moment in a 
veritable deluge of noonday light. And then a 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 311 


veil of inky darkness descends, blotting every¬ 
thing completely out of sight. 

“Just a mere twenty-fifth of a second has 
elapsed since you pressed the trigger; but it has 
been long enough to trace the exact likeness of 
the deer on one of the plates of the camera.; 
The startled animal goes bounding off into the 
forest, and what a strange story he will carry 
back to his kind!” 

“Mr. Shiras, what is the range of illumination 
of these flashlight powders, in taking animals at 
night?” I asked, arousing myself, with an effort, 
from the rapture of his vivid description. 

“About fifty feet,” came the reply. “Mean¬ 
ing, that is the normal range. Of course a 
heavier charge can be used—and often is used in 
conjunction with a long-focus lens—and then 
good work can be done up to twice that distance. 
A curious and interesting fact in this connection 
is that the direct and collateral rays of the magne¬ 
sium-powder have an extraordinary power, when 
it comes to those at a distance seeing them. 
Homesteaders living four or five miles beyond 
my camp have reported noticing the sudden glare 
of my light in the sky overhead. By way of a 
test, one night I fired off an ounce of powder in 
a spot where I was surrounded by high trees, and 
watchers at Marquette, twenty miles distant, 
stated they not only saw the reflection, but said 



312 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


that it extended along the sky-line for a long 
way and gave much the appearance of heat- 
lightning.” 

“I presume you have numerous contempo¬ 
raries to-day in this flashlight photography?” I 
propounded. 

“Lots or them, indeed; and I am glad it is so. 
It was a number of years after I began this kind 
of camera work, however, before any one else 
seemed to care to try it. Then Nesbit and Dug- 
more, of this country, became interested. They 
were followed by Schilling, of Germany, who, in 
turn, was followed by a host of others. All of 
these men, notably those I have specifically men¬ 
tioned, have been successful in the work and 
have made some valuable contributions to 
natural science, contributions which could have 
come from no other source than a camera.” 

“Have you ever had any very narrow escapes, 
Mr. Shiras, in taking pictures of wild animals?” 
I asked. 

He laughed. “I can’t say that I have. You 
see, they have invariably been glad to get away 
the moment they heard the click of my shutter, 
or the explosion of my flashlight.” 

“But surely you know photographers who 
have been less fortunate in this respect?” 

“Oh, yes! There is Radclyffe Dugmore, for 
example. Dugmore nearly lost his life a num- 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 318 


ber of times while photographing the wild beasts 
of British East Africa. He made some won¬ 
derful pictures on that trip, pictures equalling if 
not excelling the famous ones of Schilling, taken 
in the same territory some years before. If you 
would like to meet Mr. Dugmore, I shall be glad 
to give you a letter of introduction, as he is a 
personal friend.” 

Of course I was delighted at this proffer. We 
talked a while longer, and then I took my de¬ 
parture, with the letter to Mr. A. Radclyffe 
Dugmore, F. R. G. S., tucked in my pocket. 

But it was several months before I was to 
have the pleasure of an interview with this 
great outdoor photographer, for when I was not 
busy with other affairs, Mr. Dugmore was im¬ 
mersed in important duties; and when he was at 
liberty, I was not. In the meantime, however, 
I managed to glean considerable other interest¬ 
ing information in regard to nature photography, 
more particularly that done with that most mod¬ 
ern of photographic equipment—the moving- 
picture camera. 

I learned that few pictures have required 
more patience or downright courage in the tak¬ 
ing than the detailed studies showing the life 
and habits of the little honey-bee. Although 
this bee is noted for its industry and ingenuity, 
patience is not among its virtues. It deeply re- 


314 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


sents any intrusion into its private affairs. Thus 
in taking such pictures, the camera-man often 
has to grind away, without making a whimper, 
while bees attack him on all sides. 

The bees cannot be transferred to the studio, 
and the photographer must work outdoors early 
and late, in all kinds of weather, to catch charac¬ 
teristic studies. He may have to wait for hours, 
with his camera loaded and focussed, until they 
swarm. Every detail of the life of the bee, the 
building of the combs, the care of their queen, 
the killing of the drones, and the gradual ac¬ 
cumulation of honey, has been photographed in 
many hundreds of feet of film. It is a satisfac¬ 
tion to know, too, that such hard work receives 
its reward, as a rule, and that this and kindred 
films have sold for as much as $10,000. 

Likewise, many thousands of feet of film have 
been used in studying bird-life, often under ex¬ 
traordinary conditions. Should the operator 
wish to secure a “close-up” of a bird’s nest, hid¬ 
den away on the face of some steep cliff, for in¬ 
stance, he must be an experienced mountain- 
climber and take his life in his hands in the 
undertaking. Some of the most interesting 
films of this kind have been made by suspending 
the photographer by a rope. The camera is 
hung around his neck, or strapped to his body, 
and the film is exposed by the man touching a 





© W. H. Bohlman and H. T. Finley 
Photo from Wide World Photos 


PHOTOGRAPH OF CALIFORNIA CONDORS, THE RAREST 
BIRDS IN THE UNITED STATES 






WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 315 


button, which sets a tiny compressed-air motor 
to going. Thus the operator’s hands are left 
free for an emergency, such as defending himself 
against the attack of the mother and father bird, 
for maintaining his position by clutching the 
rope, or for holding himself away from the face 
of the precipice. 

It is not an uncommon thing to find a photog¬ 
rapher who has spent years in taking a single 
film of a somewhat difficult subject. An ex¬ 
ample of this kind is an English woman who was 
two and a half years in making a thousand feet 
of film illustrating the life of the moorhen, which 
included the mating, the building of the nest, the 
laying of the eggs, and the hatching and rearing 
of the young. 

Another moving-picture photographer jour¬ 
neyed to the Arctic regions, and was frozen in for 
two years, simply to obtain a good film of the life 
and habits of the polar-bear. The search took 
him far across the ice-fields, with his outfit 
packed on a dog-sled; and before his return to 
civilization he suffered great hardships, and sev¬ 
eral times almost lost his camera and valuable 
films. 

When I finally had the good fortune to meet 
Mr. Dugmore in New York, at one of the big 
hotels, he gave me, as I had hoped he would, 
some veiy interesting tales of photographing wild 


316 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


animals of the most ferocious and formidable 
kind. 

“I think,” said Mr. Dugmore, as he thought¬ 
fully stroked his Van-dyke beard with a lean, 
brown hand, “that perhaps no class of pictures 
makes such an appeal to the imagination as the 
studies of wild animals in their native haunts. 
To steal up close to lions, tigers, and elephants 
demands dauntless courage on the part of the 
camera-man, and great skill in manipulating the 
instrument, as well. The old circus ‘thriller/ in 
which the trainer entered the lions’ cage, was 
a simple performance by comparison. The 
photographer must resort to the most extraor¬ 
dinary devices in his work if he is to ‘come 
home with the bacon/ and he must never think 
of growling if he has to wait several months to 
get a single picture he wants. 

“Whether a man carries along an ordinary 
camera or a moving-picture outfit, long and ex¬ 
pensive journeys must be made in India or Africa 
to get these pictures of the jungle beasts. The 
wild animals’ haunts, of course, lie far off the 
ordinary lines of travel, and the jjungles must be 
traveled on horseback or afoot in order to reach 
them. With the aid of native runners the game 
must be stalked with the utmost care, for those 
animals have such a keen scent that it is impos¬ 
sible to get near enough to photograph them if 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 317 


you are down-wind from them. I know one in¬ 
genious fellow who deceived the jungle animals 
by concealing himself on a self-constructed float¬ 
ing island, which appeared to be merely a mass of 
boughs drifting with the stream. His camera 
was set up on a stout floating base which took the 
place of a tripod. On the first trial the game 
was frightened away by the clicking of his mo¬ 
tion-picture camera. He removed the film, and 
for five weeks thereafter ground the empty cam¬ 
era whenever the animals came near. Finally 
they got used to the noise, and paid no attention 
to it. Then he quietly replaced his film, and two 
weeks later went away with a wonderful series 
of pictures.” 

“What sort of a camera do you use in your 
jungle work, Mr. Dugmore?” I asked. 

“The best kind of a camera, as I have found it, 
is the long-focus reflex type. Equip such a cam¬ 
era with a convertible lens of high speed, also 
with a telephoto lens for auxiliary use, and you 
have an ideal outfit. Either plates or films may 
be used, although I have a preference for the 
latter on account of their lightness and unbreak¬ 
able nature.” 

“Would you mind stating what prompted you 
to make your first trip into the jungle?” 

“Not at all. Glowing tales told by my 
brother, who made a march from Mombasa to 


318 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


Uganda, back in the late Nineties first aroused 
in me a desire to see this great animal paradise. 
Later, Schillings’s book, Flashlights in the Jun¬ 
gle , appeared, and I saw photographic proof of 
what I had heard and read. I made up my 
mind to start for British East Africa just as 
soon as I could acquire a little more knowledge 
in the difficult subject of wild-animal photog¬ 
raphy, in which I had become passionately in¬ 
terested to the neglect of my gun. I realized 
practice alone could give this knowledge. For 
several years I had hunted in the forests of east¬ 
ern North America, using a camera in place of 
my rifle, and I continued my practice with the 
camera up to within two weeks of my departure 
for Africa. Since I could not buy an instru¬ 
ment which seemed suitable, I devised several. 
Armed with the best of these, and a complete 
outfit for developing my pictures in the field, 
also an elaborate flashlight outfit operated by 
electric batteries, I left New York toward the 
end of November, as happy over my prospects 
as a boy looking forward to a trip to the circus. 

“A short stay in England enabled me to com¬ 
plete certain details of my outfit. When I ar¬ 
rived at Nairobi, the outfitters with whom I had 
arranged for my trip met me at the station, and I 
received permission from the authorities to take 
pictures on the Reserve, an immense tract cov- 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 319 


ering ten thousand square miles; but I was given 
to understand that I was not to kill any animal 
except in self-defense, as gunning was unlawful. 
Guided by the advice of my outfitters, I made up 
a small 'safari/ or party, of twenty porters, a 
headman, a cook, a camera-bearer, and a Masai 
guide. My wife and two boys were also along. 
The train took us as far as Kiu. 

“We camped not far from the station, and 
enjoyed our first night under canvas in tropical 
East Africa. Never were any foreigners more 
surprised at the conditions. We had imagined 
there would be countless insect pests and suf¬ 
focating heat, instead of which the February 
night was cool and refreshing as an early autumn 
night at home. What seemed more surprising, 
there were no insects of any kind to annoy us. 
We sat outside watching the big clear moon, and 
wondered at it all. Was this an exceptional 
night ? or could we expect such superb conditions 
to prevail throughout our trip? We found out 
later on that hot nights were almost unknown, 
and insect pests so rare that we were only both¬ 
ered with them for a very short spell toward the 
end of the rainy season. 

“It was not long before we got into the game 
country in earnest. We saw plenty of zebra, 
wart-hogs, ostrich, fringed-ear oryx, some Grant- 
gazelles, and Thomson’s-gazelles, giraffe, harte- 


320 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


beest, impala, and a few rhinoceros. One after¬ 
noon we arranged two flashlight cameras near 
one of the water-holes along the Olgerei River. 
Early next morning we visited them—to find 
that they had been sprung by some nocturnal 
birds which we were not especially desirous of 
taking. 

“This was the beginning of a long series of 
flashlight trouble, and we finally gave up all 
attempts at having animals take their own pic¬ 
tures at night near water-holes, as such en¬ 
deavors were thwarted by the meddlesome birds. 

“After getting some very good pictures of 
zebra, we broke camp on February 9th and 
started back toward Kiu, taking a new route. 
We had proceeded less than a mile, and were go¬ 
ing through some rather high grass when my 
Masai guide, who w^as leading, stopped with 
great suddenness, and said in a low voice, 
‘Kifaru!’ This means rhinoceros. Sure enough, 
not twenty yards in front of us lay a large rhinoc¬ 
eros. He was fast asleep, his big gray-brown 
back showing plainly above the waving grass. 

“For some unaccountable reason or other we 
had not loaded our guns that morning, and we 
had a strong feeling that this should now be done 
in the greatest haste, and before any attempt was 
made to take the beast’s picture. Jim Clark, 
my companion, began loading the shotgun with a 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 321 


charge of buckshot and a ball, and then filled the 
cylinders of his .45-calibre revolver while my 
gun-bearer slipped cartridges into my powerful 
double-barreled .450-calibre cordite rifle. 

“As they finished these provisions of safety, I 
carried my camera a little to one side, so as to 
obtain a better view of the animal in case he 
should awaken and charge. What ever aroused 
the brute I do not know, for we were very still; 
but no sooner had I attained my position and 
raised the hood of the camera to focus him than 
his huge body gave a heave and he was up 
and glaring at us. 

“It seemed incredible that so large an animal 
could move so rapidly. But I was not to be 
done out of my picture; so, as the rhino rushed 
toward Clark with an angry grunt, I focused on 
him. At the same instant I pressed the release 
that made the exposure. My thrill of triumph 
was accompanied by the roar of the shotgun. 
Clark was trying to stop the animal with a 
charge of buckshot! He might just as well have 
shot so much sand against its tough hide. The 
creature came on without even hesitating. 

“Seeing the futility of his first shot, Clark 
fired a 12-bore ball from the left barrel; then, 
elevating his revolver, he began firing right into 
the rhino’s head as the animal rushed past him 
not six feet away. 


322 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

‘‘The brute made straight for my Masai guide, 
who stood quietly enough, awaiting the charge. 
In the meantime I was endeavoring to put a 
second plate in position, so that I might get a 
picture of the actual encounter.” 

I gasped at such evidence of coolness and 
singleness of purpose! “But, Mr. Dugmore,” I 
said, “I should think you would have been so 
frightened you would have dropped your camera 
and used your cordite rifle.” 

“That would not have brought me any more 
pictures,” he answered, with a smile. “I had 
come clear to Africa to get pictures, and such a 
wonderful pose as this one was not to be lost. 
Besides, I had every confidence in the ability of 
the native to take care of himself; and my gun- 
bearer would save him in a pinch, in all proba¬ 
bility. Well, when the rhino was so close to the 
Masai that he could have reached out and touched 
its big horn, he jumped aside with wonderful 
dexterity, and the animal went plunging past. 

“Owing to the erratic and swift movements of 
the animal I was unable to get it in focus im¬ 
mediately. Indeed, before I could do so, it had 
turned and was charging madly in my own direc¬ 
tion. I now realized that if I got my second 
picture it would doubtless be one in which I fig¬ 
ured as a principal instead of the Masai! 

“In my hurry I did not put my plate-holder all 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 323 


the way in, as I afterward found out to my great 
disappointment, for it was light-struck. But I 
got his approaching image sharp on the ground- 
glass, and when he was less than seven yards 
from me, snapped the shutter. 

“Then, as quick as lightning I whipped out 
my revolver, and prepared to spring aside. But 
the agile Masai ran up at that crucial moment, 
and drove his long spear in the side of the rhinoc¬ 
eros. Then, carrying the spear with it, the 
animal turned from me toward Clark, who put 
another bullet into its head. This decided the 
bewildered and sorely wounded creature to leave 
us alone, and off it went, heading directly toward 
the badly terrified caravan. The wretched por¬ 
ters, seeing the imminency of trouble, dropped 
their loads and ignominiously bolted. My Ma¬ 
sai chased the retreating animal so closely that, 
when it turned toward the porters, it saw its old 
enemy within a few yards, armed with a long 
knife. That was too much for the rhino, which 
forgot all thoughts of revenge and made off into 
the tall grass and trees.” 

“Did you get any lions’ pictures on this trip?” 
I asked. 

“Some very excellent ones,” was the response. 
“Later on, when we were in the foothills of the 
Ithanga Mountains, our first night in camp was 
made interesting by the roaring of such beasts. 


324 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


From every direction came the hollow, gruesome 
sound. This was music to our ears, for of all the 
animals in East Africa the lion was the one 
which I wanted most to photograph. 

“The following day we built a thorn ‘boma,’— 
which is a rough shelter made of the limbs of the 
thorn-tree, and which will temporarily ward off 
the attack of a lion upon the inmates within,— 
and twelve yards from the boma we placed the 
carcass of a freshly-killed zebra. Near the body 
two cameras and a flashlight were concealed, and 
when night came we entered the prickly shelter 
with great hope in our hearts. 

“Nothing happened, however, to break the 
long watch—nothing except the distant roar of 
lions again, which at one time came quite near. 
The next night we were less hopeful. There 
was no moon; dark, heavy clouds hung low in the 
sky; the blackness of the hour was almost over¬ 
whelming. 

“I took the first watch, and lay with my head 
on the ground, in order that I might be able to 
see any approaching animal against the very in¬ 
distinct sky-line. There was scarcely any wind, 
so I rather hoped to hear anything that might 
come, even if I could not see it. 

“For about two hours I had been straining 
both eyes and ears, when suddenly, to my as¬ 
tonishment, a huge lion appeared against the 


WILD LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 325 


murky backgrounds of the heavens. He was 
standing close to the carcass of the zebra when I 
first discovered him, and I could not understand 
how he could possibly have come without being 
seen or heard. Yet there he stood, the king of 
beasts, the most feared animal in Africa and the 
world, not twelve yards away! 

“My excitement was beyond the power of 
words to express. As far as I could judge the 
big creature was staring toward the boma, and it 
was with a decided trembling that I reached over 
and whispered the startling word ‘Lion!’ to Jim 
Clark, who was fast asleep. 

“Fortunately he awoke without making any 
noise. Leaning over me, he had his first look at 
the animal. Much as I wanted a photograph I 
felt almost afraid to fire the flash, for what should 
we do if he attacked us? After a flashlight goes 
off you can see nothing for several moments, so 
the lion might have rushed upon us without 
our observing his act, and once upon us it would 
be too late to offer a defense. 

“We finally decided that the best plan would 
be for us both to shoot as I pressed the electric 
button. While we were getting ready for this 
the lion seized the zebra, and without the slightest 
effort turned it around. Fearing that he would 
carry it off beyond reach of the cameras as they 
were focused, we hurriedly took aim, and as I 


326 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


touched the button, we both fired. The two 
shots rang out simultaneously with the explosion 
of the powerful light, but whether or not the lion 
was hit we could not tell in the succeeding cur¬ 
tain of blackness. 

“But in a moment we knew he was not killed, 
at least; for the clearing light showed him gone. 
From a point about a hundred yards away he 
then began roaring in a manner that made us 
most uncomfortable. It was not long before he 
was joined by his mate, and the pair kept up the 
most frightful roars I have ever heard. Occa¬ 
sionally they seemed to move farther away, but 
they would come back again, and each time they 
did this we would fancy they were surely coming 
to pay us their respects. ' 

“You can’t blame us for not crawling out of 
the boma right away to reset the cameras and 
flashlights. But we did this disagreeable job 
after a while, and then lay back in our shelter of 
thorns, with fingers on our guns, listening to the 
angry tumult out beyond. From the sounds we 
were presently of the opinion that other lions 
had joined the first two, for there appeared to be 
at least five of the brutes in a throaty concert. 
None came near the cameras, however, the re¬ 
mainder of that night. 

“With the first gleam of dawn we started for 
camp, as I could scarcely wait to develop my 


I 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 327 

exposed plates. My delight was unbounded 
when, on examining the negatives after they had 
come out of the developer, I found that I had 
really secured two excellent photographs of this 
lion at a distance of twelve yards. 

“In spite of the peril we had faced, my success 
made us eager for the day to pass, so that we 
could once more try our luck in the boma. But 
that night things did not work out well for us. 
Instead of a visit from lions we had to content 
ourselves with watching a miserable hyena, which 
came several times to the bait. Constantly 
afraid, almost trembling of limb, he would come 
to the carcass after much hesitation, greedily 
gulp down a lump of torn flesh or a mouthful 
of entrails, and vanish for some time before re¬ 
turning for another repast. The whirr of the 
wings of some nocturnal bird appeared to 
frighten him as much as the sound of lions, and 
when Clark and I moved a little to tantalize him, 
he shot away in the darkness with the speed of 
the wind. What a life such a cowardly creature 
must live! Ever afraid of his own shadow, 
shunned by all animals save the jackal, with 
whom he often associates in his filthy feasts, his 
hang-dog expression and skulking ways are truly 
symbolical of the lowest in animal character. 

“The next night we were again on duty in the 
boma. As usual, I was taking the first watch— 


328 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


lying with my head on the ground, after my 
fashion of the first night. Scarcely anything 
could be distinguished in the darkness, and I was 
trying to decide whether a hazy object some dis¬ 
tance away was an animal or a bush, when I felt 
rather than heard some creature moving near 
the dead zebra. With the aid of my night-glass 
I made out the prowling forms of a hyena and 
two jackals. 

“For about half an hour they remained in 
sight. Evidently they could smell us, and were 
afraid to begin their meal. Then, without any 
apparent reason, they vanished. It seemed prob¬ 
able that they had winded a lion. 

“Some time elapsed, and I was beginning to 
think my conjecture was wrong, when I was 
startled by a heavy thud, and I saw that two 
large lions had landed on the zebra’s carcass. 
Evidently they had stalked the dead animal as 
though it were a living beast, and crouching low 
as they stole up, had been invisible against the 
sky-line, while the spring had been so quick that 
my eyes failed to register either its start or its 
progress. The stealthy and absolutely silent ap¬ 
proach of these two big beasts through the 
parched grass made me realize with what ease 
they could stalk a man, no matter how alert he 
might be; and my respect for their prowess in¬ 
creased greatly. 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 329 


“The first sound after they had landed on the 
carcass of the zebra was the rending of the skin, 
as they tore great pieces from the flank in their 
endeavors to get at the flesh. It was a terrible 
sight for one man to witness alone, and so close, 
out there in the open, that it made the cold 
chills run up and down my back till I actually 
shivered. 

“But I meant to secure a splendid picture of 
the two beasts if there was any way to do it. I 
awoke my companion. After one look, Clark 
agreed with me that it would be best for us to 
adopt our former tactics of shooting the moment 
the flash was operated. Of course any degree 
of accuracy would be out of the question, since it 
was so dark we could not see the sights on our 
gun-barrels. But it was a sort of safeguard in 
lieu of something better. 

“At the determined signal I pressed the elec¬ 
tric button, and we both fired. The flash did not 
go off! Instead, there came a fierce growling 
and snarling, followed by the swishing of grass; 
and when the light grew better I saw that our 
lions had disappeared. 

“What a dismal failure we had made of this 
wonderful opportunity! What could be the 
matter with our flash, anyhow? 

“We were discussing the situation, and I was 
in the act of going out to the cameras to see what 


330 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


was wrong, when Clark grasped my arm in a star¬ 
tled way. Looking in the direction he pointed, I 
saw a dark, moving form not more than twenty- 
five yards away. Was it one of the lions coming 
back? If so, we could only believe that it was 
coming for us. It seemed unnatural that any 
animal would return for any other reason, after 
it had been fired at only a few minutes before. 
We both felt a strong sense of alarm, and fin¬ 
gered our guns nervously. 

“Turning my night-glasses toward the slowly- 
advancing creature I saw that it was really 
a lion. I found myself shivering at thought of 
what would have happened had I left the boma, 
as I had been on the point of doing. 

“To our great relief, the newcomer stopped 
and sniffed of the body of the zebra when he came 
up to it. As there was no chance to photograph 
the lion, and there was a possibility that he 
might come on and attack us at any moment, 
Clark and I decided to shoot. We fired to¬ 
gether, my companion using the .450 cordite and 
I handling the .275 Mauser. 

“The combined sound of those shots was al¬ 
most deafening. Then came an intense silence 
—a silence that was almost overpowering to our 
highly-wrought nerves. Had we hit the animal 
in a mortal place ? There would have been some 
sound of a death struggle if we had. Had we 


WILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER 331 


missed him? We ought to have heard the rush¬ 
ing noise of his flight, in that case. 

“We waited for several minutes; then, unable 
to stand the suspense any longer, we crawled 
out of the boma, armed with an electric lamp 
and our rifles. It was not a particularly 
wise proceeding on our part, for we were invit¬ 
ing an easy attack should the beast be only 
slightly wounded or have a mate nearby; but 
curiosity impelled it. First we examined the 
cameras, finding that we had unwittingly broken 
one of the wires while placing shrubbery about 
them. Then, turning the light to the ground in 
the vicinity of the carcass, we were amazed to 
find the body of the lion—and he was stone dead! 
The little .275 bullet had entered his head di¬ 
rectly between the eyes, and death had been in¬ 
stantaneous.” 

Mr. Dugmore then went on to tell me how, 
while he and his companion were skinning the 
lion the following morning, the porters arrived 
to carry back the blankets and other articles. 
Their delight was great when they found that 
their leader had really killed^ a lion of consider¬ 
able size. Nothing would satisfy them but that 
Dugmore should be carried bodily back to camp, 
perched on the shoulders of first this twain and 
then that twain of stalwart blacks. Shouts and 
songs announced their approach. In camp the 


332 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


skull of the lion was lugged about while the na¬ 
tives executed the fantastic movements of the 
lion-dance. Now and then the ghastly jaws of 
the beast were opened and closed by the negro 
who bore the skull, an act which always increased 
the violence of the chanting refrain. 


IX 


THE TRAPPER 

T WO men, each attired in deerskin hunt¬ 
ing shirts and coonskin caps, stood si¬ 
lently watching a colony of beavers in¬ 
dustriously at work in a small stream near 
the headwaters of the Missouri. A pale 
moon lit up the work in a telling manner. 
It silver-tipped the thick, shiny coats of the 
little animals which were emerging from the 
water in quest of new material; and it like¬ 
wise fell aslant of other busy creatures which 
were patiently gnawing a deepening girdle 
around certain desirable trees along the banks. 
Across the stream stretched a cunningly laced 
dam of trees, roots, and weeds, reinforced with 
clay hard-packed from many a beaver tail, and 
constantly growing in bulk and strength. 

Behind their leafy screen, the men—John Col¬ 
ter and Henry Potts,—leaned on their long rifles 
and watched the animated scene with keen inter¬ 
est and sparkling eyes. Finally Colter turned to 
his companion with a low word, and they resumed 

333 


334 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


their journey back to camp with the same swift, 
velvety tread with which they had, a few minutes 
before, come upon the beavers at their work. 
Colter’s voice soon broke the night quiet. 

“Potts,” said he, “wasn’t that a sight to set a 
trapper’s blood to jumping?” 

“It sure wur,” assented the shorter man, with 
unusual gusto. “Doggone it, Colter, we’ve seen 
rafts o’ beaver ever sence we struck into this 
countiy! It well-nigh tempts an old trapper like 
me to up an’ quit the party an’ lay over hyar 
fur a spell. By jingo! I’d do it, too, ef I had 
comp’ny o’ the right sort.” 

John Colter sprang in front of the speaker, 
placed a big hand on each of his shoulders, and 
looking him steadily in the eye, said quickly: 
“Henry Potts, how would I do fur thet 
comp’ny?” 

“Do you mean it, John?” cried Potts, catching 
his breath. 

“Sartin.” 

“Then it’s a go,” decided Potts; and as they 
continued onward they enthusiastically talked 
over their future plans. 

All this happened away back in 1804, and the 
party to which John Colter and Henry Potts be¬ 
longed was none other than the famous expedi¬ 
tion of Lewis and Clark, who were exploring 
a route through the Rocky Mountains to the 


THE TRAPPER 335 

Pacific coast. Colter and Potts, especially the 
former, were experienced trappers and expert 
woodsmen, having lived practically all their lives 
on the American frontier, where danger from 
wild animals and hostile redskins had been a 
daily condition. Thus far they had been of great 
aid to the exploring party, and it goes without 
saying that, when they announced their inten¬ 
tion of remaining near the headwaters of the Mis¬ 
souri to trap beaver, every effort was made by 
their leaders and comrades to dissuade them. 
But their minds were set; they waved the others 
good-bye, wishing the expedition God-speed. 

Both trappers knew, as their recent compan¬ 
ions had pointed out, that they were running 
great risks in thus staying behind, for this sec¬ 
tion of the country was as rampant with hostile 
Blackfeet Indians as it was with fur-bearing an¬ 
imals—an hostility which lately had been vastly 
increased because Captain Lewis had shot down 
a thieving warrior of the tribe. But the bold 
spirits of Colter and Potts only arose, bristling 
and antagonistic, at mention or thought of hu¬ 
man opposition to their enterprise. No fear of 
arrow or tomahawk would ever deter them in 
their cherished undertaking; nor could the obsta¬ 
cles of nature make them hesitate! 

Using great caution, however, after they had 
obtained a supply of traps, the two trappers 


336 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


tread the banks of the stream, maintaining a 
sharp lookout for Indians as they visited their 
locations and gathered in their rich spoils. Sev¬ 
eral times they saw passing bands of the redmen, 
and once very narrowly escaped detection, drop¬ 
ping in the bushes just in the nick of time. 
These experiences showed them that they must 
be even more cautious, so they decided to keep 
in concealment daytimes and resort to visiting 
their traps very early in the morning before the 
Indians would be likely to be roving about. 

They were on a branch of the Missouri called 
the ‘‘Jefferson Fork.” Into this poured a small 
stream, six miles up which they had recently 
been securing a most encouraging haul of beaver 
from their double-spring traps, forged on the 
anvil of an American frontier blacksmith. 
These traps were cleverly concealed in each in¬ 
stance in the slides of the animals, where such 
slides led down to the water’s edge, and were 
fastened to a root or other natural anchorage by 
a small chain which the trappers were always 
careful to conceal by leaves and debris. 

Early one morning, just at daybreak, John 
Colter and Henry Potts embarked in the birch- 
bark canoe they had finished a few days before, 
and began ascending the Jefferson Fork on their 
daily examination of their traps. Soon they 


THE TRAPPER 


337 


turned into the narrower stream, and paddled 
silently and watchfully along the northern shore, 
where the bank rose high and heavily timbered. 
Colter was in the stern, Potts in the bow. Both 
men were using a paddle, in long, steady sweeps, 
while their rifles lay ready for instant use in the 
bottom of the craft. Somehow each of them 
felt a strange presentiment that something of a 
perilous nature was lurking near, but beyond 
speaking in lower tones than usual and watching 
both banks with unwonted sharpness, neither 
trapper gave any sign of his uneasiness. 

Keen as were their eyes, they failed to detect, 
just ahead on both sides of the high banks, scores 
of painted men whose own black eyes glittered 
behind bushes and the trunks of trees, while their 
owners impatiently waited for the moment when 
the canoe should draw nearer and their chief 
should give the word for the attack on the hated 
pale-faces. 

On came the unsuspecting trappers, yard by 
yard, until— 

Suddenly the most frightful yells and whoops 
burst forth from each side of the river. Simul¬ 
taneously several hundred Indians appeared on 
each bank. One tall redskin, of markedly ma¬ 
jestic bearing, advanced and held up a command¬ 
ing hand, at which the cries ceased as quickly as 


338 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


they had begun. In broken English this fero¬ 
cious-looking fellow demanded that the canoe- 
men should immediately come ashore. 

Colter and Potts saw that they were in a de¬ 
cidedly tight fix. They knew that it would be 
suicide to attempt to flee either up or down 
stream, for with the banks lined with savages all 
bearing guns or powerful bows which they knew 
how to use, it was manifest they could not pro¬ 
ceed a dozen yards before some of the many mis¬ 
siles which would be discharged at them would 
find their exposed bodies. 

So there was nothing to do but comply. 
Crestfallen and greatly disgusted with them¬ 
selves for having so easily fallen into the trap, 
they paddled slowly toward the nearest bank. 
Before the canoe could be run aground, one of 
the impatient Blackfeet rushed out into the 
water up to his knees and seized the rifle of Potts, 
in the bow. Too late, Potts made a grab for it; 
the Indian plunged ashore with a yell of tri¬ 
umph, undoubtedly considering the gun to be 
his own particular trophy. 

The very boldness of the savage’s act incensed 
the fiery Colter. Forgetting all else, he drove 
the canoe forward after the retreating Indian 
with all the strength of his sinewy arms. As 
soon as the prow touched the grass and mud of 
the shoreline, he sprang past his companion, gun 


/ 


THE TRAPPER 


339 


in hand, and leaped upon the coppery body of 
the exulting Blackfoot. The latter was taken 
completely by surprise. He was sent stagger¬ 
ing; the confiscated rifle was twisted out of his 
hands as if he had been a child with a child’s grip. 
The next thing he knew, his white attacker was 
handing the rescued gun to its rightful owner. 

At once Potts, seeming to forget his friend, 
and impelled by a sudden frantic desire to escape 
before it was too late, began to paddle the canoe 
out into the stream. This act left Colter on the 
edge of the bank, alone, and surrounded by a 
semi-circle of the enemy, all of whom showed 
anger at the way he had treated the member of 
their band who had taken Pott’s gun. 

But, with Potts endeavoring to escape, the at¬ 
tention of the savages was for the moment di¬ 
verted to him. Scarcely had he begun to move 
out in the river when a score of arrows were dis¬ 
charged at him, accompanied by a chorus of ex¬ 
cited yells. Other arrows, at the same time, were 
discharged by the vigilant Indians on the op¬ 
posite bank. 

Several of the feathered barbs struck the 
canoe, and one hit Potts in the shoulder, making 
a very bad wound. Realizing the futility of re¬ 
resistance, Colter now cried to his companion 
to come ashore and submit to capture; but Potts, 
driven mad by the injury he had received, paid 


340 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


no heed to these importunities. Instead, he 
raised his gun, took aim at one of the foremost 
Blackfeet on the side which he had just left, and 
pulled the trigger. Simultaneously with the re¬ 
port of the firearm, the Indian gave a shriek and 
crumpled up, a bullet through his heart. 

This was the occasion for renewed yells from 
the Indians—yells of the most blood-curdling 
kind. As the air shivered with the mad medley 
of sound, arrows by the score, with a few bullets, 
began falling around the unprotected occupant 
of the canoe, and in less time than it takes to tell 
it the poor fellow’s body had become a veritable 
pincushion for a half-dozen accurately aimed 
wooden bolts. 

Colter turned his back to the scene, with a 
shudder. Hardly had he done so than he him¬ 
self became the center of attention from the 
irate savages, whose vengeance apparently was 
not yet satisfied. His own gun was seized by 
the very Indian from whom he had wrenched 
Potts’s. Not yet tamed enough to permit the 
savage to have it in this summary manner, Col¬ 
ter jerked the weapon out of his hands, and with 
a mighty push sent the painted warrior heels- 
over-head into the river. His wrath appeased, 
he then stepped up to the tall chief and calmly 
presented the weapon to him. 

The catastrophe to their fellow-warrior was 



THE TRAPPER 


341 


hugely, though silently, relished by the Indians 
as a whole. Their stoical bronzed faces spread, 
as the wet and muddy fellow scrambled ashore, 
and many a guttural sarcastic remark was di¬ 
rected his way in the next few minutes, while it 
was plain to be seen that Colter’s intrepid act 
had raised him considerably in the estimation of 
every Indian except the victim himself. 

Colter was now relieved of his long hunting- 
knife, stripped naked, and tied to a tree, while 
the savages prepared breakfast. The trapper 
had an understandable knowledge of the Black- 
feet language, and by keeping his ears open, dis¬ 
covered that he owed his predicament to the fact 
that Indian hunters the day before had stumbled 
upon one of his and Potts’s traps, had learned by 
the signs that it had been set by white trappers, 
and had been laying in wait for them to pay a 
visit to the locality. 

The captive was offered some broiled venison, 
which he ate heartily despite the ill-favored look¬ 
out confronting him. In fact he was so cool in 
the face of the torture which he must have known 
would be meted out to him before the day was 
over, that the Blackfeet were almost awed by his 
demeanor. They had had a few white captives 
before this, but never one quite so indifferent to 
his fate as this young man. They felt that had 
he only been bom in a tepee, with a skin of their 


342 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


own color, he most assuredly would have been a 
great and powerful chieftain. 

Immediately after partaking of the meal, the 
Indians put out their small individual fires, and 
gathered around in council to decide as to the 
disposition to be made of the trapper. Most of 
their talk Colter, by reason of his proximity, 
could overhear. Cruel as were some of the 
measures advocated to be dealt out to him, he 
gave no evidence of sensing them. Some war¬ 
riors proposed burning him at the stake; others 
thought he should be made to swim across the 
river while those on both sides used him as a 
target; others—the majority—favored a contest, 
whereby so brave a man might have a slight, 
very slight, chance of saving his life by winning. 

The chief, also, was for this nobler sort of pun¬ 
ishment. Striding up to Colter he seized him by 
the shoulder. In broken English he demanded: 
“White beaver-man, um good runner?” 

Colter was too well acquainted with Indian 
customs not to comprehend the drift of the ques¬ 
tion. He knew that he was to run for his life 
—to furnish a kind of human hunt to his per¬ 
secutors. Though he was really noted among 
his own kind for his swiftness of foot, he knew 
that it would never do to acknowledge this fact, 
as he would then be given less opportunity to 
escape. So he said, with a hopeless-appearing 




THE TRAPPER 343 

shake of his head: “White beaver-man run 
like sick squaw; go heap bad.” 

As he had hoped it would do, his stratagem 
gained him some vantage-ground. He was led 
by the chief out into the plain. Four hundred 
yards from him stood two-score young Blackfeet 
warriors, the picked runners of the band, armed 
with spears and knives only, which they were to 
use if they could come within striking distance of 
the fugitive. Their bodies, nude except for a 
breechclout, shone with fresh applications of 
bear’s grease; their faces, hideously decorated 
with mineral and vegetable colors, showed every 

confidence in the outcome. 

\ 

When the chief, farther back with the rest of 
the Indians, hoisted a blanket on the point of his 
spear, John Colter crouched for the first spring 
of the race that should mean life or death to him. 
When that gay-colored blanket suddenly fell, 
he shot forward like a stone out of a catapult. 
At the same moment a tremendous yell arose 
from his redskinned contestants behind, and a 
fainter but more voluminous chorus of cries 
swelled up from the main body of savages. 

Colter ran far differently from any “sick 
squaw” those Blackfeet had ever seen. He 
seemed to fly rather than run; in fact, he was as¬ 
tonished at his own speed. As it became evident 
to his pursuers that he was gaining on them at 


344 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


every leap and bound, a cry of rage filled the air 
at the deception which had been practised upon 
them. They redoubled their efforts to overtake 
the white man; but still the fleet-footed Colter 
increased his lead. 

Six miles of prairie lay ahead before he could 
attain the protection of the heavy timber along 
the boundary of the Jefferson Fork of the Mis¬ 
souri—a timber in whose wealth of tangle and 
wildness he hoped he could conceal himself once 
he had gained it. This was a long way to go 
for a young fellow running on foot for his life. 
How could he ever hope to make it? A single 
stumble—an unexpected injury to a leg—the 
turn of an ankle—would bring disaster; the 
plain, too, abounded with the prickly-pear, which 
wounded his feet at almost every jump. 

Only by the lessening strength in the cries of 
those coming after him did Colter know that he 
was gaining on the Indian runners. He did not 
dare to look around lest he should lose a precious 
inch or two of the lead he had obtained. At 
first he had been in momentary dread of a thrown 
spear or knife reaching him, but now he was sure 
there was no further danger from that source if 
he could only maintain his gait. True, the main 
body of Indians might take it into their heads 
to give chase on their ponies, in violence of their 
agreement not to use such mounts, and this 



THE TRAPPER 


345 


thought caused the trapper much uneasiness; but 
he hoped for the best. 

Not until he had run half-way across the plain 
did John Colter venture to turn his head. Then 
he saw something that proved rather disquieting. 
While the main body of the Indian runners were 
a considerable distance behind, with several 
scattered here and there between, one swift¬ 
footed warrior, armed with a spear, was not more 
than a hundred yards in his rear. 

Colter realized, with a sinking heart, that this 
redskin had gained on him from the beginning; 
that the Indian was really a remarkable runner, 
a faster man on his feet than he himself. He 
foresaw but one outcome: eventually the Black- 
feet must come up within striking distance— 
then what? Well, then he must either be struck 
down, like a pig running from slaughter, or face 
about and give combat to the armed warrior with 
his defenceless hands. 

Discouraging as was the prospect, the trapper 
was not the kind to relinquish hope as long as 
breath remained in his body. Therefore, he 
strained himself to the utmost to increase his 
pace. So prodigious, in fact, were his efforts 
that the blood gushed from his mouth and nos¬ 
trils, staining his bare breast. He felt a sudden 
weakness from this hemorrhage, but his iron will¬ 
power ke]Dt him going. Sometimes he was so 



346 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

faint his eyesight blurred and he ran as a blind 
man, but his heavy legs kept pounding away in 
a mechanical sort of way, carrying him nearer 
and nearer to the coveted fringe of forest. 

When he was within a mile of the timber, he 
was cognizant of the fact that his strength 
seemed to be slowly returning instead of dimin¬ 
ishing. Also he became aware, as his senses 
sharpened, that he could now hear the sound of 
footsteps in his rear. He had no need to look to 
satisfy himself whom it was. But he did look, 
nevertheless, impelled by a sudden intuition of 
immediate danger. 

What John Colter saw, of course, was his 
Indian pursuer—the swift fellow who had been 
gaining on him right along, slowly, surely. But 
what the savage was doing just then held even 
greater significance for the trapper than what 
he had been doing. For in the Blackfeet’s cop¬ 
pery hand, poised over his head, was the long 
shaft of his befeathered spear, and the wicked¬ 
looking flint point was in the final stage of its 
aim at Colter’s back. 

As quick as a flash the trapper wheeled about 
and dove at the Indian’s legs. The Blackfeet 
was taken completely unawares. Before he 
could strike or prevent it, the white man had 
swept his feet out from beneath him, and he fell 
heavily forward, his spear sticking in the soft 


THE TRAPPER 347 

ground and breaking off so that the major part 
of the shaft was left in his hands. 

Colter acted once more with lightning-like 
speed. Springing forward, he pulled out the 
pointed section of the spear, and with a move¬ 
ment equally quick drove the point through the 
Blackfeet’s greasy breast. With a gasp the sav¬ 
age fell back dead. 

Then the trapper sped onward once more, 
freed at last of what seemed the greatest menace 
to his freedom. Looking back, a little later, he 
saw the other Indian runners stop to inspect their 
fallen comrade, heard them howl with the bitter¬ 
est rage, and then saw them continue the pursuit. 

Their delay, however, over the warrior he had 
struck down made it possible for the white man 
to place a still greater distance between himself 
and his enemies. He gained the skirt of cotton¬ 
wood trees flanking the river, dashed through it, 
and plunged into the cool waters. 

In midstream was an island, against the upper 
end of which driftwood had lodged in such a way 
as to form a natural float. Colter swam to this, 
dove under it, and came up near its middle, where 
he was able to cling and find a breathing space 
between two logs. 

Scarcely had he secured this concealment than 
there appeared on the bank he had just left nine 
or ten of his pursuers. They spent a few mo- 


348 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ments examining his footprints on the bank, then, 
whooping and yelling to announce their discov¬ 
ery to others who were arriving, they plunged 
into the water and swam toward the island. 
Through the chinks in his refuge, Colter saw 
them search the entire island, sometimes passing 
within a few feet of him. Then others went on 
to the opposite shore, to look for possible tracks 
there; but returned presently to announce that 
their recent captive could not have touched that 
side at all and must either be on the island or 
have drowned in his attempt to swim across. 

With his heart in his throat, Colter now wit¬ 
nessed another and a closer search of the island. 
Indians passed and repassed the collection of 
driftwood shielding him; one redskin even 
stepped out upon one of the larger logs, and 
kicked some of the refuse aside with his foot; but 
the trapper was then completely immersed and 
well screened under another portion of the float¬ 
ing debris. He thought his charged lungs 
would surely burst before the Indian stepped 
off; but he did not stay long, and the fugitive 
was able once more to get a breath of fresh air. 

Fortunately, none of the searchers seemed to 
think that the trapper could be in so unlikely a 
place as under the driftwood, with only his nose 
sticking above water. So, when the last search 
failed to reveal him, or any trace of him, they 


THE TRAPPER 


349 


must have considered that he had given up his 
life to the river itself, for by nightfall they went 
away and he saw them no more. 

John Colter then dove again, and this time 
came up in the open water beyond the debris. 
Half swimming and half floating, he worked 
his way down stream with the current for 
a little way, following which he gained the bank. 
He was so chilled and tired out that, in spite of 
the danger of discovery attendant upon it, he 
determined to make a little fire. Without a 
shred of clothing, without a match or any other 
possession helpful to the process, this idea of 
Colter’s might well be considered an idle and 
hopeless one. But he was a most versatile wood- 
craftsman; therefore, in a very short space of 
time he had gathered some dry balsam sticks 
which he ground down to shape on sharp river 
stones until they were fairly efficient fire-making 
implements. A bow was made from a broken 
green limb, but he was considerably put to it to 
fashion a thong for it, which was finally done by 
using the bark of a very tough vine. A little 
inner bark of the root of a dead cottonwood, 
finely shredded by pounding between two stones, 
made good tinder. Colter spun his crude drill 
swiftly and steadily with the bow; smoke soon 
began to rise from the hearth-piece as a result of 
the friction; presently the fine tinder broke into 


350 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


a spark, and then, by careful nursing and blow¬ 
ing, the trapper had a little flame springing up. 
To this he added heavier tinder, then fine dead 
twigs followed by broken branches. 

Colter regarded his fire with that sense of tri¬ 
umph every Boy Scout feels upon acquiring his 
first blaze by a similar primitive method. But 
this man had performed the trick under far 
greater difficulties. If he had had a knife in his 
possession, or a rawhide thong, how much easier 
of accomplishment the job would have been! 
Now, with a sigh of relief, he stretched out be¬ 
side his cheerful blaze, basking in its radiated 
heat and comfort until he finally succumbed to 
sleep. 

The next morning, alone, naked, without gun, 
food or canoe, in the midst of an unbounded wil¬ 
derness, John Colter awoke to face a prospect 
none too bright. His only chance for any real 
relief lay in his reaching a trading-post of the 
Missouri Fur Company, which was situated on a 
branch of the Yellowstone River many miles 
away. Even should he elude the numerous rov¬ 
ing bands of savages, days must elapse before he 
could hope to reach this post, days during which 
at times, unless he provided himself with some 
sort of garments, he must traverse considerable 
stretches of prairie, his naked body exposed to 
the burning heat of the sun by day and the chills 


THE TRAPPER 


351 


of a shadowed earth by night, while his unpro¬ 
tected feet must stand the lacerations of count¬ 
less cutting things of the forest and plain. 
Though he might see game in abundance around 
him, he had no means of acquiring it, and for 
food he must depend largely upon roots and 
berries. 

Defiant of all these difficulties, thanking his 
Creator that he was still alive to meet them and 
not dead like poor Potts, Colter pushed reso¬ 
lutely forward, guiding himself in his trackless 
course by those signs and indications known only 
to Indians and backwoodsmen. As he pro¬ 
gressed, he managed to fashion for his body a 
very crude covering, which he formed by lacing 
together, with pliant vegetation, various sections 
of birch-bark. He even captured some trout 
with a rough spear made from a needlelike bone 
taken from the leg of a deer’s skeleton which he 
found where the wolves had stripped it of flesh. 
And after braving dangers and hardships 
enough to break down the spirit of anybody ex¬ 
cept that of a western pioneer, he arrived safely 
at his destination, startling the inmates of the 
trading-post with the incongruity of his garb. 

The skins of animals were the first materials 
used by mankind for clothing. Before Adam 
and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden 


352 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


they furnished themselves with garments made 
from the soft, velvety, tanned coats of wild 
beasts. In the eleventh century furs had be¬ 
come fashionable throughout Europe. Later, 
extravagance in the use of furs had grown to 
such an extent that Louis IX had 74-6 ermines 
made into a lining for one of his surcoats. In 
these times the use of the choicer furs—such as 
sable, ermine, gris, and Hungarian-squirrel— 
was restricted to the royal families and the no¬ 
bility, to whom they served as distinctive marks 
and badges of rank. 

In our own country the early settlers of the 
northern provinces soon learned the value of the 
furs of the numerous animals which peopled the 
extensive rivers, lakes, and forests, of these vast 
territories. They collected the skins in eager¬ 
ness, and found an increasing demand for them 
as immigration from the mother country in¬ 
creased. Trinkets, liquors, and other articles 
sought for by the native tribes, were shipped 
from Quebec, and from there up the St. Law¬ 
rence to Montreal, which soon became the great 
trading-post of the country. English capital 
grew interested, and many influential and 
wealthy Britons connected with the government 
of Great Britain—among them Prince Rupert 
and Lord Ashley—finally obtained from King 
Charles a charter of incorporation giving them 


THE TRAPPER 


353 


full trapping and trading rights of the wilder¬ 
ness in the neighborhood of Hudson Strait, 
extending from Hudson Bay westward to the 
Pacific, and northward to the Arctic Ocean, ex¬ 
cepting that occupied by the French and Rus¬ 
sians. 

Thus was organized the famous Great Hud¬ 
son Bay Company, which even to-day is still 
one of the largest fur-trading organizations on 
the globe. The annual shipment of furs is 
something amazing, going to all parts of the 
world through the central mart at London, 
where sales take place in March and September 
of each year. The United States itself uses 
close to 200,000 mink skins and 800,000 muskrat 
skins every year, to say nothing of lesser 
quantities of the furs of the silver-fox, the red- 
fox, the wild-cat, the raccoon, the marten, the 
mink, the beaver, the opossum, the fisher, the 
muskrat, the skunk, the rabbit, the squirrel, the 
lynx, the otter, the wolverine, the badger, the 
bear, and the wolf. Of these the silver-fox pelt 
is the most valuable, averaging $100, and is 
greatly sought after by the trappers. “Bunny” 
brings the least price of all, with an average of 
three cents per skin. 

To be a clever and successful trapper, much 
more is required than is generally supposed. 
The mere ability of a person to set a trap ac- 


354 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


cording to printed directions sent out with it 
by its manufacturer, forms but a small part of 
his proficiency in the art. Unless he enters 
deeper into the subject, and learns something of 
the nature and habits of the animals he intends to 
catch, his traps will be set in vain, or, at best, will 
meet with only indifferent results. 

The study of natural history becomes here a 
matter of the utmost importance, bringing to 
the trapper not only a wealth of unceasing in¬ 
terest and pleasure, but an increased revenue in 
dollars and cents. Unless he thoroughly ac¬ 
quaints himself with the habits and whims of his 
intended victims, the cunning and sagacity of 
the animals will often outwit his shrewdest judg¬ 
ment. The sense of smell, so acutely present in 
most all wild creatures, becomes one of the trap¬ 
per’s most serious obstacles to contend with; at 
times this fimction really seems to be supernat¬ 
ural, so unfailingly does it manifest itself under 
the most unpromising of conditions. 

The skilled trapper in all cases avoids touch¬ 
ing the trap with his bare hands, as a means 
toward baffling the animal’s scenting ability. 
On the other hand, the average amateur will set 
and reset his traps in vain, and finally retire 
from the pursuit in disgust, from the mere want 
of observing this rule. Animals of keen scent 
are quick to detect the slightest odor, and to 


THE TRAPPER 


355 


such animals the human skin leaves a strong and 
unmistakable trace which they can smell several 
feet away. A pair of clean buckskin gloves, 
worn by the trapper, will generally effectually 
prevent the leaving of human scent when set¬ 
ting traps. 

In the art of trapping, the bait is often en¬ 
tirely dispensed with, the traps being set and 
carefully concealed in the runways of the various 
animals sought. These by-paths are easily de¬ 
tected by an experienced trapper, for they are 
indicated either by footprints or other indispu¬ 
table evidences of the species, such as gnawed bits 
of bark or roots, the width and locality of the 
spoor, and so forth. 

Natural channels, such as hollow logs or crev¬ 
ices between rocks or fallen trees, offer excel¬ 
lent situations for steel traps, and a good trapper 
is always on the qui vive for such chance advan¬ 
tages, thus saving himself much time and labor 
which would otherwise be spent in the building 
of artificial enclosures and lead-ways. 

The most effective baits are those which are 
used to attract the animal through its sense of 
smell rather than through its vision. These 
baits are known to the profession as “medicine” 
or scent-baits, and possess the most remarkable 
power of attracting the different species from 
great distances, and leading them almost irresist- 


356 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


ibly to any desired spot untainted with a human 
presence. Among these medicine-baits are the 
barkstone or castoreum, of great value in catch¬ 
ing beaver; the oil of anise, used as a general 
dope; fish oil, much in vogue for treating bait 
left for water animals; musk, used in taking ot¬ 
ter and muskrat; and oil of skunk, a powerful 
scent attractive to almost all woods animals. 

When the trapper sets a line of traps, he usu¬ 
ally establishes what he is pleased to term a 
“trail.” This is nothing more nor less than a 
scented course along the ground, from trap to 
trap, or several trails radiating outward from a 
certain trap, over which has been drawn a piece 
of meat, a dead fish, or a chunk of wood, which 
has previously been copiously treated with the 
medicine. Some trappers accomplish this re¬ 
sult by smearing the scent upon the soles of their 
boots instead of using a string or rope and the 
afore-mentioned kinds of drags; then, when they 
walk along, the scent is left upon the leaves, 
dirt, twigs, rocks, and grass upon which they 
have trodden. 

The first thing to be considered by the trapper 
when he plans a winter’s campaign is the selec¬ 
tion of the trapping-ground, and he usually 
finds it most desirable to choose a locality where 
travel by water can be resorted to as much as 
possible. Otter, mink, beaver, and muskrat are 


THE TRAPPER 


857 


among the most desirable game for him, and as 
these are all amphibious animals, a watered dis¬ 
trict is therefore much to be preferred. Lakes, 
ponds, and streams, bordered by wild woods in 
sparsely settled portions of the country, are the 
best possible grounds for general trapping, and 
the mountain lakes are especially good. 

The trapper generally attends to the building 
of his cabin before the trapping season com¬ 
mences in October. He makes his shanty as 
weatherproof as possible, cuts up a good store 
of dry wood for the stormy days of winter, and 
piles it either inside the main structure or in a 
lean-to adjacent to it; sees that a good water sup¬ 
ply is available; stocks up with warm clothing, 
traps, and provisions, not forgetting snowshoes; 
and last, but not least, constructs himself a good 
boat if he has not purchased one and brought it 
into the region. This craft may be either a 
birchbark, canvas, or cedar canoe; a homely dug- 
out, or the French lumberman’s bateau, accord¬ 
ing to his choice as influenced by the nature of 
the watercourses he means to traverse. 

Often the route of the trapper extends as 
much as fifty miles, and along this course he may 
lay as many as 150 traps, usually of the regula¬ 
tion steel type, although he often resorts to such 
made-on-the-spot devices as dead-falls and 
twitch-ups to accomplish his ends. The steel 


358 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


traps are equipped with two jaws, smooth or 
toothed as required, and are of varying spread¬ 
ing capacity, reaching all the way from four 
inches in the No. 1, for muskrat and similar 
small animals, to sixteen inches in the No. 6, for 
large bear. Weighted down with his burden of 
traps and other paraphernalia, a trapper often 
carries as much as sixty pounds. But he sel¬ 
dom traps alone. From two to four make up 
the average trapping party, one member gener¬ 
ally being left behind in camp to take care of 
valuable equipment and furs stored there. 

Although it is not universally known, the 
United States Government and the authorities 
of every game-bearing State are very extensive 
trappers—not individually, of course, but 
through their scientific organization of wild-ani¬ 
mal hunters and trappers. And, as I have al¬ 
ready stated in the chapter dealing with The Big- 
Game Hunter , Uncle Sam takes the life of wild 
game with an entirely different purpose than the 
ordinary trapper. Where the typical trapper 
catches animals with the sole idea of profit de¬ 
rived from the sale of furs, Uncle Sam and the 
State catch with the intent of destroying pests 
injurious to the farmer’s poultry, livestock, and 
crops. The pelts thus taken, as befits any pro¬ 
gressive and economic great country like our 
own, are afterward sold, the proceeds often an- 


THE TRAPPER 


359 


nually amounting to more than $100,000, an a- 
mount which, applied to the cost of maintaining 
the enterprise, is certainly not to be lightly con¬ 
sidered. 

The U. S. Bureau of Biological Survey has 
close to five hundred hunters and trappers, un¬ 
der salary, whose sole duty it is to hunt and trap 
predatory wild animals on Government prop¬ 
erty. In all the National Forests many of 
these hardy, skilful fellows are to be found, not 
only in the winter but also in the summer, for 
it is primarily the animal they want and not its 
pelt. Coyotes form the bulk of their catch, with 
wildcats next, and wolves third. Just imagine 
seeing 27,000 coyotes cooped up in one pen! 
Of course nobody ever did, but that figure repre¬ 
sents the number of such animals killed last year 
by Government hunters and trappers. 

The menace of predatory animals is, of course, 
concentrated in a few western and northern 
States, but the rodents—such as prairie-dogs, 
ground-squirrels, jack-rabbits, rats, and mice— 
know no State boundaries; they are everywhere, 
and the killing of these pests is, therefore, of 
even greater importance than the more dramatic 
business of annihilating wolves and “bobcats.” 

State hunters and trappers operate under the 
game-warden of the commonwealth, bearing no 
responsibility to the Federal department. They 


360 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


are paid by the State to trap within their own 
boundary, and money derived from the sale of 
furs goes toward the upkeep of the work. In 
Michigan last year a small party of State trap¬ 
pers under “Ping” Foster spent the winter on 
Isle Royal, a game preserve in Lake Superior, 
and when they came out in May they had to their 
credit 27 wolves, 67 lynx, 50 mink, 50 fishers, 2 
foxes, and 1 marten. 

No feature of this quest of the Government 
trappers after predatory animals is more excit¬ 
ing than the chase of the timber-wolf, that gaunt 
creature of the primeval forest whose teeth are 
as sharp as needles and whose cunning is unsur¬ 
passed by any animal excepting the wily fox 
himself. His cousin, the prairie-wolf, while 
smaller, is also a formidable antagonist when 
cornered or encountered in a pack of his own 
kind. In the early days this wolf hung on the 
flanks of the buffalo herd in great numbers, 
tearing open the jugulars of the old bulls, the 
strays, and the calves. Now, with the buffalo 
of the plains, a picture of the past, both types of 
wolves have turned their attention to the domes¬ 
tic animals of mankind, becoming a veritable 
nuisance. Although greatly reduced in num¬ 
bers, there is scarcely a wild stretch of timber 
anywhere in the country that does not harbor 
one or more bands of these marauders ready to 


THE TRAPPER 


861 


pounce out upon the first helpless man, woman, 
child, cow, sheep, pig, or chicken, which they 
can find. Indeed, their appetite for beef is so 
enormous that the Biological Survey estimates 
it costs as much as $1,200 a year to let every one 
of them stay alive. Under such conditions can 
we wonder that the Nation and State put a 
bounty of $25 or more on every wolf scalp? 
Even where only one lone wolf is left in a vicin¬ 
ity it is as bad for the residents as one lone small¬ 
pox germ; for it has been discovered that in such 
cases the solitary wolf steals a march on civiliza¬ 
tion by mating with a dog and raising a litter of 
wolf-dogs, which are just as destructive as pure¬ 
bred wolves and sometimes much worse. 

As an instance of what an injurious force to 
civilization the wolf is, I will refer to the story* 
told me a short time ago by “Hank” Williams, of 
Custer, South Dakota. Hank is one of the 
most experienced trappers the Biological Survey 
has in its employ, and has nosed about the fields, 
forests, valleys, streams, lakes, and hills of his 
native State until he knows its physical and 
mammal characteristics from A to Z. When I 
asked him how it was he came to catch the fa¬ 
mous “Custer wolf,” which for nine years had 
terrorized the four-legged members of the 
ranches for a hundred miles around Custer, and 
had baffled the owners and trappers until they 


362 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


were almost in a state of despair, he laughed 
modestly and said: 

“I reckon you been readin’ the newspapers 
about that old wolf! Huh? Well, my friend, 
they got matters twisted a bit, like they gen’ly 
do; but I’ve got the time right now, an’ if you’ll 
jest take it easy in that rockin’ chair Betty has 
pushed out fer you, while I fuss with this oil¬ 
can and rusty trap hinge, I’ll tell you the real 
facts in the case. 

“Y’know, we’re right in the heart of the Black 
Hills here, an’ the rugged nature of the ground, 
coupled with plenty of timber, makes a capital 
hidin’-place for wolves. In years gone by they 
used to hide away in the rocks an’ undergrowth 
of the wooded heights, and in the caverns along 
the gullies, and swoop down of a night in big 
packs, square onto the settlers’ livestock, gettin’ 
a whoopin’ fine pickin’ whenever they chose. 
Sence those days combined efforts of the stock- 
men and trappers have cut down their ranks, but 
there’s still a considerabl’ lot of the varmints left 
to make life a burden around the ranches, an’ 
it’s my pa’ticklar business to see that this bur¬ 
den grows less every year. 

“As a rule, the wolves hit here and there in 
random sort of fashion. At heart they are 
cowards, an’ will rarely approach very close to 
a ranch-house, preferrin’ to make their killin’s 


THE TRAPPER 


363 


out of hearin’ of it. But about nine year ago 
it was noticed that sheep and cattle was being 
mauled very close to habitations sometimes, an’ 
when Smith over here an’ Jones over there be¬ 
gun to report killin’s of the same kind—throats 
torn and gashed in the same way, with evidence 
that not more than one or two creatures could ’a’ 
been engaged in the job—folks took notice an’ 
said as how it must ’a’ been done by the same 
wolf, an’ as how he was one of the boldest and 
fiercest they had ever found the tooth-marks of.” 

“Was this wolf never seen at that time?” I 
asked. 

“Not fer awhile, but he was a little later. A 
couple of cowboys, rushin’ out when they heard 
the bellows of their frightened cattle one night, 
saw a huge gray wolf, the biggest they had ever 
seen, go scampering away from a dying cow on 
the edge of the herd. They fired, but missed. 
A few months later this same chap, the ‘Custer 
wolf’—he was called that because he seemed to 
hang so persistently about the town itself—was 
seen by another cowboy, as Mister Wolf was 
finishing a feast of beef. This time a mighty 
good shot was afforded, an’ the cowboy was a 
crack man with a rifle, too. He got in two shots 
with his repeating Winchester; but that darned 
wolf sprung away as if the gun had not been 
turned his way at all! 




364 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


“It was the same old story when other fellers 
got a glimpse of him in the months an’ years 
that followed. Every one of ’em swore, after a 
fruitless bang or two at his vanishing form, that 
he bore a charmed life an’ would never be killed 
by a bullet. Trappers that trailed him, that shot 
at him, that set out traps an’ poisoned meat fer 
him, only come back home with long faces, and 
said he was still at large. They begun to side 
in with the ranchmen and range-riders an’ say 
he was the cutest old wolf they had ever seen, 
an’ that they was of the opinion he had come 
from a matin’ of wolf an’ mountain-lion, he was 
so big, crafty, an’ bold. 

“One day the next fall a trapper named Ben 
Trunkley, while out in the hills lookin’ for the 
the old codger, suddenly run on him with his 
mate, which, to Ben’s astonishment, proved to be 
a docile-lookin’ mountain-lion. Ben ups with 
his gun, an’ got in a shot at the mountain-lion, 
the wolf bein’ too fast fer him. He knew he hit 
the lion because he trailed her some distance by 
the drops of blood she left behind, but he didn’t 
find her. 

“Two years later, while still on the trail of the 
Custer wolf, he found a mountain-lion dead one 
morning. It had eaten a piece of poisoned meat 
that Ben had put out for the big wolf. As there 
was unusually large wolf tracks about the place, 


THE TRAPPER 


865 


intermixed with the lion’s, an’ as he found an 
old bullet wound in the flank of the dead animal, 
he was reas’nably sure he had settled fer the old 
wolf’s mate if he had not fer the wolf itself.” 

“Did the wolf ever take another mate?” I in¬ 
quired. 

“I reckon not; at least he was never seen with 
a mate after that,” said the trapper. “But her 
loss did not seem to dampen his malicious spirit 
any; fact is, if anything, it seemed to make him 
more bitter toward the belongin’s of the ranch¬ 
ers, fer there was not a week passed durin’ the 
next four or five year that did not bring in some 
report of his depperdations. Everybody won¬ 
dered at his craftiness. The Gover’ment de¬ 
clared he had killed more than $25,000 worth of 
livestock. He would be here one night, suckin’ 
the life-blood from the throat of a sheep or cow, 
an’ the next night he would get credit fer doin’ 
the same sort of trick fifty miles the other side 
of the Hills. Range-riders an’ ranchers said 
there was no use shootin’ at a phantom that the 
devil protected, an’ when they would hear the 
Custer wolf’s ghoulish an’ sinister wail in the 
dark hours of the night, as he scented a fresh vic¬ 
tim, they’d finger their belts in a helpless an’ 
terrible nervous sort of way. Once stockmen 
thought they had located him. They called a 
round-up. But that wily wolf escaped. He 


366 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


! 


didn’t always kill to eat, either. His lust fer 
blood got to be as bad as a sheep-killin’ dog’s. 
He’d slaughter an’ mutilate, it ’pears like, 
jest fer the ornery fun o’ doin’ it—lots o’ 
times. Cattle an’ sheep would be found alive 
with a leg broken, an ugly tear in their flanks, 
an eye gouged out, a tail chawed off. Kids 
was afraid to go an’ come from school; mothers 
frightened their children into obedience by 
sayin’ the Custer wolf would get ’em if they 
was naughty any longer. Their dads jest nach- 
erally toted a gun along whenever they went out 
at night. The price on that wolf’s head was 
raised from $100 to $500, an’ the stockmen that 
posted it said they’d gladly pay it to the first 
chap that could bring in the Custer wolf’s scalp.” 

“And all this time you were—where, Mr. Wil¬ 
liams?” I put in. 

The trapper laughed, and looked up a moment 
from the trap upon which he was working. 
“Where was I all this time?” he repeated. 
“Well, my friend, I didn’t have a chance to make 
a fool o’ myself like the rest of ’em did! You 
see, I happened to be with the boys over on the 
French fighting-front while all this was goin’ 
on, an’ I only knew about it in letters from home. 
Eut somehow I jest couldn’t feel that that wolf 
bore a charmed life an’ was a favorite of the 
devil, even if he did cut up as bad as the Old One 




THE TRAPPER 


367 


himself, an’ so I jest ached to get back an’ have 
a fling at the animal with my own traps, or a 
square shot with my trusty Newton rifle.” 

“According to the newspapers you got that 
chance,” I commented, with a smile. 

“So I did. It came around as soon as I was 
mustered out of service. Then Uncle Sam of¬ 
fered me a new job—that of hunter and trapper 
right here in my own State. It was the very 
kind of work I wanted, an’ I could ’a’ shouted 
with joy. I came back here a full-fledged trap¬ 
per, with orders from the Government to get 
that troublesome wolf at any cost. 

“That was in March, 1920. You might think 
it would be a hopeless sort o’ task to find a lone 
wolf in a big an’ unbroken wilderness such as 
lays around these parts, an’ it would be to the or¬ 
dinary man; but when a feller knows their ways 
an’ the sort of haunts they lean to, it ain’t nowise 
so hard if he has plenty o’ time at his disposal, 
an’ I had that, because the Gover’ment told me 
to put in every blessed minute a-huntin’ that 
scallywag. 

“The first thing I did was to clean up my rifle 
and a bunch of No. 5 steel traps. Then I 
scented my shoes, to remove the human odor, 
and set out to lay my traps in the most likely- 
lookin’ spots. In selectin’ these places I worked 
on the theory that a wolf usually travels in a 


868 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


circle not greater than 150 miles, an’ that he 
never kills twice in succession in the same local¬ 
ity. I didn’t place any poisoned bait, fer the 
very good reason that I knew such a crafty old 
geezer as this chap had long ago learned to tell it 
by a single whiff. An’ I was very careful in 
handlin’ my traps, too. As I set each one I 
stood on a calf-hide, an’ handled it with blood- 
soaked gloves. 

“In spite of my precautions with the traps, 
it remained for my eyes to catch their first 
glimpse of the Custer wolf in another place than 
in one of my steel-jawed contraptions. A 
couple of weeks later, I traced him by signs into 
the Pelgar Mountains, an’ found he had cleared 
out two old wolf dens an’ made himself a new 
one, which ran fifty feet back under the hill. 
Campin’ near this spot, I kept very quiet, an’ 
watched every day fer him to emerge or enter. 

“On April 1st I sighted him, only to find that 
the clever old rascal had enlisted two coyotes as 
guards, one traveling on each of his flanks an’ 
keepin’ all the way from a hundred to two hun¬ 
dred yards away from him. This maneuver 
made it impossible fer me to get close enough to 
shoot the wolf without alarming his attendants. 
I saw I was baffled—at least fer that time. But 
I determined to start the ball a-rollin’ fer 
another meetin’ which might be under more fa- 



THE TRAPPER 


369 


vorable circumstances if I worked things right. 
So I drew a bead on the coyote nearest me. At 
the crack of my gun, the animal gave a yelp, 
leaped in the air, an’ came down never to rise 
again. 

“You know what happened next. The wolf 
gave a few lightning-like bounds and vanished 
in the brush ahead, likewise the coyote on the 
far side of me. But I was tolerably well satis¬ 
fied. The next time, I told myself, I would 
either get the other guard or the old tartar him¬ 
self. If I didn’t get the wolf then, why the 
third time I would have him at my mercy—un¬ 
less he renewed his coyote protectors. 

“It was almost a week later before I saw the 
wolf once more, an’ as the plaguey luck would 
have it of course I was on the side occupied by 
the surviving coyote. I tried to work around 
the animal, but in doing this made a little noise. 
With a warning yelp to her lord she started to 
dash away, but I was too quick fer her and laid 
her out with a bullet through the head. 

“After that the wolf deserted his den, cun¬ 
ning old codger that he was. Fer a time I saw 
him no more. But twice during the month of 
May I found traps which I was sure he had 
sprung. July 3d, to my unbounded admiration, 
I discovered that he had laid down upon one of 
them in a gully—fer all the world as if to tan- 


370 HEROES OF THE WILDS 

talize me. The act had sprung it, prob’ly as he 
intended, an’ had clipped a little wisp of his gray 
hair from his haunches, which I accepted in the 
spirit it was sent. I was baffled, but his clever 
tricks amused me to the core. Sometimes I felt 
as if so crafty a beast really deserved to be left 
to live. 

“But then he scuttled out of the vicinity like 
the gray phantom he was, and when reports 
commenced to come in about his ruthless kill¬ 
ings in new places in the county, I got hard¬ 
hearted again an’ recalled my orders from head¬ 
quarters to bring in his scalp at any cost. 

“In August he was back ag’in, an’ pulled the 
old stunt on me of springin’ one o’ my traps by 
sprawlin’ his big body on the pan. I kin imag¬ 
ine him laughin’ to himself each time he done 
that.” 

“He must have had a humorous streak in his 

make-up as well as a most sagacious one,” was 

mv comment. 

•/ 

“You’re right there, friend; old Custer surely 
did, to judge from his actions. But his time 
was close; those were some of his last didoes. 
About the middle of September, usin’ every bit 
of craft I could muster, I set a new line of traps 
in a section o’ the hills I expected him to fre¬ 
quent next, spendin’ long hours at the job an’ 
fussin’ ov^r trivials as I had never thought o’ 


THE TRAPPER 


371 


fussin’ before. It told. I plodded along one 
mornin’ to find one of the traps gone. I had 
weighted it down with the customary ‘drag’ at¬ 
tached to the chain,—you know trappers don’t 
dare to secure a trap to an immovable object in 
taking big game, or the animal will gnaw off a leg 
an’ escape,—an’ in this case I had used a five- 
foot section of cottonwood bole. The ground 
was all mussed up around where the trap had 
been. I was proper excited, fer I was sure 
when I found the trap I would also find the 
long-sought wolf. 

“When I had proceeded along the trail, 
marked by drops of blood an’ a general dis¬ 
turbed condition of dirt an’ grass an’ moss, fer 
perhaps a hundred an’ fifty yards, I came to 
a lacerated windfall root on which the drag had 
caught. There it was, with all the chain at¬ 
tached; but the wolf had managed to break the 
swivel an’ go on with the trap. 

“It was the same old story ag’in—always es¬ 
capin’. But maybe, thought I, I would get him 
yet. As long as the trap itself was attached to 
his foot or leg, there was ground fer hope. So 
on I went once more, followin’ the trail. Would 
you b’lieve it, I tracked that varmint through 
gully an’ over hill fer a full three miles before 
I sighted him! The minute he saw me he 
stopped, an’ made a frantic effort to gnaw off 



872 HEROES OF THE WILDS 


the foot that the trap had gripped; but I was too 
quick for him. My old Newton went to my 
shoulder; it barked, and the Custer wolf keeled 
over at last. I found that he was not near so big 
as folks had imagined in the distortion of their 
fears—not as big as even I had imagined. Fact 
is, he was a little smaller than the average wolf, 
weighin’ only ninety-eight pounds. An’ he was 
an old wolf, too. The fur at the ruff of his throat 
was snow-white. But gee-whillikens, mister, that 
boy was a superbly-formed fellow! As I turned 
him over with my foot I did not wonder that he 
had performed such feats of destruction and 
sagacity as he had done during the last nine 
years of his life.” 


I 





















